This week’s drum fill is a tried and trusted drum fill that works great when you’re rocking out! Simple, but effective.
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This drum fill is what I’d call a partial groove fill. It keeps the 8th note flow going on the hi-hat until the “&” of 3 and then we release all the tension the fill has created by going caveman on the snare on beat 4.
Learn The Fill
This drum fill uses our old friend, the three 16th note group. Our group this time is bass, snare, rest. Here’s what that looks like played across a whole bar:
Play this with a metronome and count as you play it. Get used to the three note pattern.
Next, we’ll add in the hi-hat playing 8th notes.
You may find that the steady hi-hat makes the bass and snare drum pattern easier to play. Make sure you can play the bass and snare pattern with and without the hi-hat. It’ll give you a stronger time feel and allow you to use the pattern to create further fills.
Now let’s cut the bass snare and hi-hat off at the “&” of three and we’ll accent the last snare with an open hi-hat. You can let the hi-hat ring until beat 1 of the next bar.
Now we have a whole beat to fill. I opted for just 16th notes on the snare. You can use your creativity to come up with many alternate endings.
Take It Further
The easy way to take this drum fill further is to come up with as many variations as you can for beat 4. I’ll let you do that. You can also change how this drum fill feels by altering how you play the “groove fill” part of the fill. Rather than just 8th notes on the hi-hat, try some of these variations.
The first variation just sees the right hand moving from the hi-hat to floor tom to give a different sound to the fill.
The second variation has us crashing together with the bass drum.
The third variation sees us crashing together with the snare drum.
All 3 variations offer a different sound and feel. Experiment with them and see which you prefer.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s drum fill. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial lesson, send us a message via the contact us page.