Return Of The Five…

This week’s fill, number 55, is a built on a 5 note group. This is a concept we’ve explored here before. Check out fill of the week #45 for a five note grouping fill in 7/8. Fills #14, #23, #26, #28 & #33 also use fives – follow the trail from #45. Let’s learn the fill.

Learn The Fill

Let’s start with the sticking pattern we’ll be using for this fill.

We’ll be using RLRLL as our group of 5 for this fill. Our first group starts on beat one, the second group on the “e” of 2, the third group on the “&” of 3 and the final note goes on the “ah” of 4. Here it is again with the groupings clearly shown.

If you’re new to five note groups then this pattern may feel strange to you at first. Practice it slowly and count out loud. To start with you may want to count it as “1 2 3 4 5, 1 2 3 4 5, 1 2 3 4 5, 1.” Once you are comfortable with that, try it with the regular 16th note counting. Be sure that each group starts in the right place (beat 1, “e” of 2, ‘&” of 3, “ah” of 4.)

All that remains now is to orchestrate this fill around the kit. This time I chose to go with stack cymbal, bass and snare. I put the Right hand on the stack cymbal together with the bass drum and left the Left hand on the snare drum. Note that you’ll want to crash with your Left hand on beat 1 after the fill.

Take It Further

Now, the obvious way to take this fill further is just to re-orchestrate the hands around the kit. Leave out the kick drum and hit tom-toms with your right hand instead. That’s a good way to get to know this fill better and I encourage you to do that. Come up with your own versions of it.

Instead of that, let’s just displace our 5 note groupings to create some new groups. We’ll start with the original grouping RLRLL and then move it one place to the left. Our new groups will be…

LRLLR

RLLRL

LLRLR

LRLRL

Let’s play our fill using these groups.

By simply displacing the original 5 note group we have come up with 4 new ways of playing this fill. Explore each group and find out which group, or groups, feel the best to you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #55. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.