It’s drum fill of the week time!

Watch drum fill of the week #76 on Instagram

This week’s drum fill features one of my favourite set up fills and the always classy bucket of fish. Let’s get to it.

Learn The Fill

Let’s get started by looking at the first half of the drum fill. This is what I consider a set-up fill. You can vary the ending and it always sounds great.

So we have an alternating hand/foot pattern that starts with a flam on beat 1 and then alternates the kick drum and floor tom and that takes us all the way up to the “ah” of 2. The “&” of two is emphasized by the snare joining together with the floor tom. Play this at a tempo where you can play it with even spacing between the hand and feet.

Now let’s add on the second half of the drum fill.

For this one we’re using a classic bucket of fish on beat 3 and beat 4 is just 8th notes on the floor tom – the first joined with the snare and the second with the bass drum.

If you’re not too familiar with the bucket of fish, check out drum fill of the week #17 for further examples – it’s a classic lick every drummer should know.

Take It Further

As mentioned above, the first two beats of this drum fill feature one of my favourite setup fills. Here’s 3 more examples of it in action. After playing these, create some endings of your own.

The first two drum fills stick to 16th notes and in keeping with the feel of the first two beats, they keep the kick drum happening in the second half of the fill.

The final drum fill brings back that 16th note triplet excitement on beat 3 and then mellows down again on beat 4.

Now create your own!

I hope you’ve enjoyed fill of the week #76. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message via the contact us page.