Para, diddle, didle, the cat & the fiddle, here’s a drum fill for you:

This week’s drum fill is featuring the Paradiddlediddle rudiment. The last time we featured this rudiment was on fill of the week #41 where we used it in 16th note form; this time we’re using it in it’s more natural triplet form.

Learn The Fill

Hopefully, you’re all familiar with the paradiddlediddle. Here it is in it’s 8th note triplet form:

Our first step in playing this week’s drum fill is to get comfortable playing the bass drum on quarter notes under the paradiddlediddle.

Play this slowly at first and listen out for, and eliminate, any flams between the bass and snare drum. Repeat this pattern many times until you find it really easy. Once you can play this pattern easily, then we can look to orchestrate the paradiddlediddles around the kit.

Here’s the orchestration I used for this fill:

Taking It Further

There are many ways to orchestrate the paradiddlediddle around the kit, here’s 3 more suggestions for you:

Our first variation uses the same orchestration for each paradiddlediddle.

The second variation has us playing tom toms in the middle of the fill and the snare at beginning and end.

The final variation brings in the ride cymbal and the hi-hat to spice things up.

I hope you’ve enjoyed drum fill of the week #49. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.