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Essential Grooves - Writing, Performing and Producing Contemporary Music

By Dan Moretti, Matthew Nicholl, and Oscar Stagnaro

A Groove-Based Toolkit for Composing, Performing, and Producing Contemporary Music

Essential Grooves is a one-of-a-kind style reference and play-along package by Berklee College of Music professors Dan Moretti, Matthew Nicholl, and Oscar Stagnaro. It was developed for students, musicians, arrangers, and producers looking to master the rhythmic foundations of contemporary music.

This book offers a deep and practical understanding of 41 core grooves drawn from styles that have shaped soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop, rock, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and Afro-Caribbean traditions. Each groove is demonstrated by top-tier studio musicians and comes with fully notated scores, stereo mixes, and multi-track audio stems — giving you everything you need to dissect, learn, and build your own music.

Whether you're creating charts for a live band, writing beats for a production, or simply increasing your groove vocabulary, this book will help you internalize the rhythmic structures of the world's most influential music.

Includes:

  • 41 style-based grooves performed by live players

  • Notation for all rhythm section instruments

  • Multi-track audio files for each groove (create your own play-alongs!)

  • Historical background to deepen your stylistic understanding

  • Flexible play-along tools for practice, composition, and arranging

Styles Covered:

  • Soul & Motown: Classic Southern Soul, Classic Motown, Soul Ballads, Soul/Funk Transitions

  • Funk: Early James Brown Funk, '70s Urban Funk, Straight Funk, New Orleans Funk

  • Hip-Hop: Four distinct groove types demonstrated and notated

  • Rock: Five different foundational rock grooves

  • Jazz: Classic Swing, Medium Swing, and two Jazz Waltz styles

  • Afro-Cuban: Danzón, Mambo, Cha-cha-chá, Songo, 6/8 Afro-Cuban

  • Brazilian: Samba variations, Bossa Nova, Partido Alto, Baião, Afoxé

  • Afro-Caribbean: Reggae and Calypso

What Essential Grooves Will Do for You:

  • It will help players, composers, and producers internalize authentic rhythms from across genres

  • It will teach you how to write accurate rhythm section parts, which is a crucial skill for bandleaders and educators

  • It will open up a world of cross-cultural and cross-genre creativity using license-free examples to build your own grooves

Spiral-bound, 95 pages, Table of Contents.
Includes multi-track audio download + downloadable multi-track DVD (.mp4)

Sample Groove: New Orleans Funk       

Sample Audio: New Orleans Funk (All Tracks)

Endorsements:

“Essential Grooves is an essential book for any musician and an invaluable tool for teachers. Written by three great artists, who happen to be amazing teachers, and who fully understand the meaning of grooves. Thank you for this wonderful gift. I love it and I have already put it to use with my own writing. Now I want to go back to school.”
 — Tim Ries

“One of the most important strengths an improvisor needs to develop is a strong rhythmic sense. This book and audio give the player an in depth look at 41 different grooves recorded with live players in the studio, a virtual boot-camp of styles. The multi-track versions allow you to mute and combine the parts in any way that you want. Long overdue. Wish I had it to practice with, way back when...”
 — Hal Crook
Format: Print
$24.00
All Books Spiral-Bound to Lay Flat on Any Music Stand
Instant Digital Downloads
Primary Instrument: All Instruments
Primary Instrument: All Instruments

“Finally! A book about styles that covers all of the important grooves that have influenced contemporary popular music, from the roots of soul, rock and Latin music all the way to hip-hop. The players on the recordings are all well-versed in these styles and I especially like the feature that allows you to create your own play-along versions from the multi-track files contained on the DVD. The scores and background text are a must- have for the contemporary musician and I'll be recommending this one to my students for a long time to come.”
— Frank Potenza

“This book accomplishes something that seems almost impossible: A great many styles of grooves are presented in a condensed form that does not shortchange the reader/player/producer. The information has been distilled to its very essence and is invaluable to anyone who has an interest in these very popular styles of music. Dig in and dig it.”
— Larry Dunlap

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