Let’s get, let’s get, let’s get, let’s get filling with fill of the week #24.

Fill of the week #24 is what I call a starting the old car fill; The first half of the fill sounds like you’re try to get the car started, and then finally at the end of the fill you get car going. Let’s motor on and learn the fill.

Learn The Fill

This fill comes in two halves. The first half is the stutter effect – trying to get the old car started. This is created by using groups of 3 sixteenth notes: Snare, Bass, Rest. The hi-hat is just playing 8th notes over the top to help the fill flow. Let’s look at the first five notes of the fill.

If you haven’t played this kind of idea before, take this slowly and count. Play at 40bpm and count every note. The next 5 notes are just a repeat of the first 5, except we start it on the “&” of 2

Again, take this slow and play it until it’s easy. Count every note and work with a metronome.

Our final step in putting this fill together is to add the last 6 notes. The fill at the end is fairly simple 16th note fill starting on the “&” of 3. We’re going to have to change the above pattern just a little, the right hand will play the High Tom on the “&” of 3 instead of the Hi-Hat. Here’s the full fill:

Taking It Further

A simple way to alter this fill, is to flam the snare notes at the start. Your timing will need to be secure before you try this as you won’t have the hi-hat connecting everything together for you.

Obviously, with this option you can split the hands up between Floor Tom & Snare or between Snare & Crash to create a different effect.

The easiest way to alter this fill is to just change what happens from the “&” of 3 onwards.

The first variation is very simple, but also one of my favorites to play – just 16th note snare drums starting on beat 4. This allows us to retain the hi-hat on the “&” of 3.

The second and third variations just alter the configuration of the last 6 notes from the original fill – keep the sticking the same: RLRLRL.

The final variation is similar to the first one, but uses 16th note triplets starting from beat 4 instead of 16th notes. This just starts our car a little faster.

Have a play around with this fill and see how many variations you can come up with.

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