Here’s fill of the week #35:

Fill of the week #35 was inspired by groove of the week #35. It features the same rhythm. After recording and writing about groove of the week #35, I noticed that the groove was essentially two blocks of seven 16th notes; One block started on beat 1, the second block started on the “e” of 3. Being unable to resist expanding my repertoire of fills featuring 7 note groups, I immediately set to work finding a 7 note group that would sound good with this rhythm. Hope you like it!

If you like seven note groupings check out Fill of the week #19 for a fill that goes over 2 bar lines.

Learn The Fill

The first step in learning any fill that uses groups, is to learn the basic group that you’ll be using. Here’s the 7 notes that make up our 7 note group:

So our group this time is R L K R L R L; Practice playing this group smoothly. Count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Sev while you do it. Once you can produce a evenly spaced 7 notes using just the snare and the bass, then we can orchestrate it around the kit. Here’s our orchestration this for this fill:

Our final step is to put that orchestration into the fill. As mentioned earlier, we’ve got one group of 7 starting on beat 1 and then another group starting on the “e” of 3. Let’s take a look at that:

The tricky part of this fill is restarting on the “e” of 3. If you are not sure of your timing, work with a metronome at 40bpm; count 16th notes out loud as you play the fill. You’ll soon be able to play the fill with accurate timing and then you can speed up the metronome.

Taking It Further

Rather than re-orchestrate the original 7 note grouping, I thought I’d just give you some additional 7 note groups to play with. Please orchestrate all these 7 note groups as you see fit. The more you play with them, the more you’ll be able to use them. Also, try creating your own group of 7 and apply it to this fill.

Our first variation is the 7 note grouping that was used in Fill Of The Week #19, have you checked that one out yet?

The second variation features a very common 8 note pattern with the last note chopped off – R L K R L K R (put another left on the end to get the 8 note pattern). You’ll have to crash left handed after this fill.

The final variation is the group of 7 split between flat flams between snare and floor tom and the bass drum. This is a powerful sounding fill.

I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #35. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, just fill out the form on the contact us page.