This week’s drum fill is getting funky. Check it out!

Watch Drum Fill Of The Week #72 on Instagram.

This kind of drum fill is what I refer to as a hybrid drum fill. It mixes a groove fill – where you’re focused on playing a fill between the bass and snare drum while keeping the time flowing on the hi-hat/ride cymbal – and a regular fill. You can find the full groove fill part of this drum fill on fill of the week #15.

Get The Fill

This drum fill consists of two parts, the groove fill and the regular fill. Let’s check out the groove fill part first.

This is part of one of my favourite groove fills. The snare drum lands on beat 1 and the “&” of 2 and the bass drum provides funkiness by playing on the “e” and “ah” of beats 1 and 2 and the “e” of 3. Play it slowly and carefully, be sure to keep the 16th notes evenly spaced. During the groove fill portion, the right hand stays on the hi-hat and the left hand plays all snare drum notes.

The second part of the drum fill is the more regular part. We’re playing a simple 16th note drum fill that starts on the “&” of 3.

Now let’s fit the two parts together.

Take It Further

I like to take a modular approach to my drum fills and combine different ideas or modules together. So here are 3 groove fill beginnings and 3 regular fill endings. If you play each combination, you’ll get 9 new fills.

Play all nine combinations of beginnings and endings. The sticking for the third endings is R-L-R-K-R-L; the other two are simple RLRLRL stickings.

If you include the beginning and ending of the original fill into the mix then you get another 6 possible combinations. I’m sure you can also think of some of your own beginnings and endings to throw into the mix.

I hope you’ve enjoyed drum fill of the week #72. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial lesson, send us a message via the contact us page.