Here’s Fill Of The Week #2:

This fill uses 3 note groupings over 16th notes. This is a very common way of phrasing drum fills & this fill is a good introduction to it.

In any bar of 16th notes you can have 4 groups of 3 and 1 group of 4 notes. This fill is phrased as 3,3,3,4,3 to make the movement from the floor tom back to the snare drum easy. Here are some variations on this fill that moves the group of 4 around a bit.

Another good thing to practice when playing this type of 16th note fill is putting the bass drum on quarter notes underneath the fill. This helps to add more weight to the fill, makes it feel more complete and it keeps the pulse going so the listener doesn’t get lost (hopefully). Here’s the original fill with the bass drum added.

Now try adding the bass drum to the other variations.

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