The paradiddle returns!

This week’s drum fill uses a very common sticking pattern – a paradiddle followed by an inverted (or inward) paradiddle. This is a very useful sticking for both fills and grooves. If you like this drum fill, check out fill of the week #63 for a similar idea.

Learn The Fill

Let’s start out with the sticking for this drum fill. We’re using a paradiddle followed by an inverted paradiddle. We’re playing this drum fill Left hand lead; hope you’ve been practicing your rudiments starting Left handed!

To add a bit of character the drum fill, we’re going to ghost the left hand notes and accent the right hand notes to make them pop.

Don’t let the change in dynamics affect your note spacing, keep playing nice smooth 16th notes.

All that remains now is to move the Right hand around the kit. What can you come up with? Here’s my orchestration:

Take It Further

Sticking patterns can really help to improve your vocabulary on the kit and there are many ways to apply them to create drum fills. Here are some further ways to use the sticking you’ve just learnt to create new ideas. Orchestrate them around the kit as you see fit.

Our first variation just accents the sticking pattern differently. See how many ways you can orchestrate this around the kit.

The second variation changes the order of the paradiddles, so now the inverted paradiddle is first and the regular paradiddle comes after it.

The final variation is a displacement of the original sticking. We’ve moved everything one place to the right. The right hand that was on the “ah” of 4 is now beat 1 and the sticking pattern as we originally knew it starts on the “e” of one.

I hope you’ve enjoyed drum fill of the week #67. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message on the contact us page.