Take your hat off to this fill:

This fill is one of my go to fills, I find myself playing perhaps more often than I should. It’s a great sounding fill that’s easy to move around the kit to create something new. Let’s check it out.

Learn The Fill

Let’s start by looking at the basic rhythm and sticking pattern for this fill.

This is a fairly simple rhythm to play, count out loud and observe the sticking pattern. In the video I play the snare on the “ah” of 4 before I start the fill. If you omit that note, you can start this fill with the left hand instead of the right.

The next step is to bring in the bass drum and hi-hat. We’ll keep the hi-hat closed to start with.

Just get used to moving the right hand from the snare to the hi-hat and back to the snare. Listen out for any flams between the hi-hat and bass drum.

If that’s sounding good, then add in the open hi-hats. I close the hi-hat on the next snare drum note after I open it.

The final step is to orchestrate the final four notes. You can just leave them on the snare if you like them there, I opted to split them between the snare and floor tom.

Taking It Further

This fill is an easy one to re-orchestrate and there are many ways to do it. Try some of these ideas and then come up with your own.

On all these variations we’re keeping the rhythm the same and just changing the surfaces we’re hitting. Coming up with multiple ways of playing the same rhythm around the kit will help to increase your fill vocabulary and flow around the kit.

I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #50. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.