Fill Of The Week #7

It’s fill of the week time. Here’s number 7:

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This is another fill that uses the 6-6-4 phrasing; check out Fill Of The Week #6 if you’re not sure what that is. Let’s break this fill down.

Learn The Fill

Our first step in learning this fill is to get the Right hand part correct. The right hand is playing a eighth notes on this fill and the other limbs will fit in with it. Here’s the right hand part:

Right hand pattern for fill of the week 7.
Right hand pattern

Our next step will be to add the left hand. Be sure to count when you do this. You should be counting “1 e & 2 & ah 3 & 4 e & ah”. Here’s the both the right and left hand.

Right and left hand part for fill of the week #7
Both Right and Left Hands

This is a nice fill sounding fill on it’s own. But to complete it, we need to add in the bass drum in the spaces to get the full 16th note flow. Here’s the full fill:

Full fill of the week #7
Adding the bass drum.

If you are having trouble learning this fill, just focus on the first 6 notes to start with. Get the first 6 nice and smooth. Then look at the last 4 notes. Because this is a 6-6-4 fill, we only need to learn the first 6 notes and the last 4. The middle 6 is the same as the first 6, so once you can play the first 6 notes, just need to focus on playing them twice in a row. Easy!

Take It Further

A good exercise to do with this fill, is to just vary the last 4 notes. There is a myriad of things you can do on that last beat. Practicing like this will again help to make you more responsive in playing situations. Here’s some suggestions:

full fill with variations on beat 4.
Just change beat 4

If you are more rhythmically advanced, you can try these suggestions:

Fill of the week 7 with rhythmic variations on beat 4
A little rhythmic variation

These variations all bring something different to the fill. The 8th notes on beat 4 in the first variation bring the fill to an end with a certain authority – especially if you accent them. The 8th note triplets in the second variation give a more dramatic feeling. The 16th note triplets in the 3rd variation just help to push the energy of the fill up a little more.

Have fun with fill of the week #7 and if you’re in Singapore and would like a free trial drum lesson, use the contact us page to let us know!