Grab some headphones and give your favorite reggae track a close listen. Under the surface, you’ll hear tightly-woven patterns performed with organic precision. These propelling rhythms turn simple chops into deep-pocket grooves. Here’s how to nail the classic and often misunderstood organ comping technique known as “the bubble.”

Sound Set your B-3 or clonewheel drawbars to 80 0000 003 (see below). Turn off the vibrato/chorus and harmonic percussion—that pinging sound isn’t what we want for the bubble. Keep your rotary speed slow. The result is a mellow vibe with a hollow body and a well-defined bottom end.

Rhythm The classic 16-count exercise “One-e-and-a, two-e-and-a, three-e-and-a, four-e-and-a” is crucial, so keep it in your head. The reggae rhythm uses tight staccato chords, often referred to as skanks (results may vary if you seek definitions in Google). Your right hand plays the skanks on the “and” upbeats. Guitar and keyboard skanks often share the same beat, but the organ can complement the chord with inversions and a clean, octave-long stretch.

Technique Your left hand adds quick chord hits about an octave below your right. Play the “e” and the “a” from the exercise with your left hand. Add your right hand back in, and the result is a bouncing “left-rightleft; left-right-left” occupying all 16th-notes in each beat except the first—so the complete bubble phrase is “e-and-a.” Leave plenty of space in this motion—since each chord is staccato, the chords should be naturally disconnected. Bubbles rely on tone to push the feel. Find inversions for the chords to make sure your left hand stays between the second and third octave.

Variations Played straight, the resulting rhythm has a machine-like drive. Swing the bubble, and it breathes life into the song. Once you master these two feels, try some variations. One groove-move involves a second drawbar manual set at 00 8005 000. With your right hand, lay down a legato chord on the first sixteenth-note of the downbeat of each measure, then quickly return to the bubble. My favorite variation is to keep the right hand on a piano or Clav and the bubble in the left hand.

David Fowler plays in Echo Movement, a band at the forefront of the new American reggae/surf-rock scene. They’ve shared stages with the Legendary Wailers and Steel Pulse, and were on the Vans Warped Tour in 2009. Visit them online at myspace.com/echomovement.