Stop dragging around, start practicing this fill.

This week’s fill uses drags to augment what is a fairly basic fill. Drags are a great way to enliven a fill and make them sound busier than they are. You can also open up the drags so they sound like 16th note triplets or 32nd notes.

Figure Out The Fill

Lets get started by looking at the basic rhythm that we’re going to augment with drags. Here is the skeleton of our fill:

Now lets orchestrate our basic rhythm around the kit. Note that the right hand does most of the work. Also note the open hi-hat on beat 1; don’t close the hi-hat until beat 1 of the next bar, let it ring throughout the whole fill.

Now lets get the left hand working by adding in the drags:

There you have the full fill. It looks simple, but when played at 120bpm those drags sound like 32nd notes or 16th note triplets and make the fill sound more complex than it really is.

Taking It Further

You can add drags to virtually any fill. Here’s a few more:

All three of these fills are fairly simple rhythmically. Try playing them with out the drags first, then add the drags to hear the difference the drags can make.

I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #58. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.