Let’s get the paradiddle out for a spin around the kit for this week’s fill of the week!
The paradiddle is one of the most useful rudiments in the drummer’s toolbox. It can be accented and orchestrated in many ways to create musical ideas. The last time we messed with the diddle family was on fill of the week #27, check that one out for more diddle ideas. Let’s see what the diddles have for us this week.
Learn The Fill
There are many members of the paradiddle family; for this fill we’re using the basic Single Paradiddle. Here it is in all it’s glory:
Hopefully you can play the single paradiddle already; if not, get practicing! Our first step in creating this fill is to split the hands up; the left hand will go to the hi-hat, the right will stay on the snare.
Pay attention to your note spacing when you do this, make sure all notes are evenly spaced.
The final step is to orchestrate the right hand between the tom toms and the snare. The right hand makes a journey from Floor Tom to Snare to Tom 1 and then back again from Tom 1 to Snare to Floor Tom. The right hand double stroke of the paradiddle is always played on the snare. Try to accent the Tom Tom notes and ghost the snare drum notes. Here’s the full fill.
Taking It Further
There are countless ways to orchestrate the paradiddle around the kit, but rather than go into those, let’s take orchestration of this fill and apply it to other members of the paradiddle family: The Inverted Paradiddle and The Reverse Paradiddle.
We’re sticking with the same idea for these fills – the left hand is on the hi-hat, the right hand plays single strokes on the toms and doubles on the snare drum.
Drum fills, and paradiddles, don’t always have to start right handed though. We can also play paradiddles starting from the left – LRLLRLRR etc. So, here’s three fills starting left handed using our paradiddle variations.
The orchestration is the same, the left hand is still on the hi-hat and the right hand moves between snare & toms. Try out these variations to broaden your fill vocabulary. Remember to crash with your left hand on beat 1 after these fills.
I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #27. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.