Here’s fill of the week #3:

That fill might seem pretty busy, it’s only 16th notes, but there is a lot going on. Let’s break it down and approach it one step at a time.

First up, lets look at what the right hand is doing:

So the right hand is just playing a simple 8th note pattern between the snare drum and floor tom – snare, snare, floor, snare, floor, snare, floor, floor. Simple!

Now lets add in the left hand

The left hand is just playing on the “ah” each beat. For the first 3 beats it’s on the high tom and on beat 4 it plays the floor time. This is a nice drum fill on it’s own & doesn’t sound as heavy as the full fill. I use this fill in lighter playing situations. The addition of the bass drum makes it sound heavier and more “Rock.” Let’s add the bass drum.

The bass drum just slots nicely in the space left by the hands on the “e” of each beat .

Once you’ve mastered this fill, try and come up with your own variations by moving your hands around the kit differently. Here’s some variations to get you started:

Keep the sticking pattern the same as the original fill when playing these variations (R K R L). Note that the last fill is just the original fill of the week with flams added on the snare drum. Adding flams to a fill can make it seem bigger and heavier again.

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