Here’s Fill Of The Week #53:

For this week’s fill we’re incorporating the bass drum and hi-hat into a 16th note fill. Let’s get to learning!

Learn The Fill

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

Hopefully you can play that and count through it with a metronome. Now we’re going to substitute some of the snare drums with bass drums, add in a unison hit on the “&” of 3 and add a sticking pattern. Here’s the next step:

Practice this pattern slowly at first with a metronome and count through it. Take note of the unison hit on the “&” of 3. The left hand plays the snare (for now) and the right plays the first tom.

Once you can play that pattern, then you can move onto the final step which is orchestrating the fill around the kit. Here’s the full fill:

Note the open hi-hat on the “&” of 3. I play the open hi-hat with the left hand while the right hand hits the first tom. I close the hi-hat on beat 4.

Taking It Further

After taking the time to learn a pattern such as this, the only sensible thing to is re-orchestrate it around the kit and come up with as many useful variations as you can. This will help you to internalize the underlying pattern and will enable it to appear effortlessly in your playing.

Here are some ideas:

These 3 variations keep the same sticking as the original pattern, we’re just moving around the kit differently.

The first two variations re-orchestrate the fill around the snare & toms. The first variation even removes the open hi-hat and instead has a flat flam between the snare and floor tom.

The third variation focuses more on the cymbals and brings the bell of the ride cymbal into the fill on the “&” of 2.

I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #53. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.