Here’s Fill Of The Week #12:

That’s a funky fill! There’s a lot going on. Lets get to it!

Learn The Fill

The first step to learning this fill is to get comfortable with the 16th note hi-hat barks. We’ll start by getting the arm movement correct between the snare and closed hi-hat.

Next we’ll add in the open hi-hat. Make sure to snap the hi-hat closed on the very next 16th note. Do this as slowly as necessary to make it sound clean and to get a consistent open hi-hat sound – probably 40bpm – 60bpm to start with.

After that, lets bring in the bass drum.

The final step is to distribute the 16th notes from beats 3 and 4 around the kit.

Take It Further

The easy way to expand on this fill is to keep the first two beats the same and vary the last two beats. Try these variations:

You can also experiment with extending the hi-hat barks throughout the whole fill. Try these variations:

Practice these variations slowly at first and listen to the quality and consistency of your hi-hat barks.

I hope you enjoy fill of the week #12. If you’re in Singapore and would like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.