This week’s finish the fill starts with a flam and a 5 stroke roll… how it ends is up to you… here’s 4 ideas though.

Where To Start?

Here are our first 6 notes:

We’re starting our fill this week with a flam on beat 1 followed by a 5 stroke roll starting on the “&” of 1 and finishing on beat 2. This is one of my favourite drum fill launch pads, it gives you almost 3 beats to improvise an ending…. what are you gonna do?

My first ending for this drum fill features all 16th notes played between bass drum and the hands. I feature flams on the “&” of 2 and on beat 4, these are very common place to accent in drum fills, it always sounds good. I fill the space between the flams with bass drums and tom toms. Note how I put bass drums either side of the flam, this gives your hands more time to get in and out of the flam while keeping the 16th note flow going.

My second ending to this fill is a funky alternative. I play the snare drum on the “e” and “uh” of beats 2 and 3 to create some funky tension. I also don’t play beat 4, only on the last 3 notes of the bar. I let my left hand do most of the work on this one as it’s more comfortable playing on the “e” and “uh” than my right hand.

My third ending uses our old friend Right, Left, Kick as 16th note triplets to spice up the finish and add some extra speed.

My fourth ending has a lot in common with the first ending, and really just another way of orchestrating it around the kit. Instead of flams on the “&” of 2 and beat 4, I now have double stops between the snare and floor tom. The fill is now orchestrated between the snare, floor tom and bass drum.

Whenever I find a drum fill that I like, I look for as many ways of moving it around the kit as I can find. This helps improve my drum fill vocabulary and also my flow around the kit as I’m not stuck playing the drum fill the same way every time and I can come up with new orchestrations on the spot – some will sound better than others though.

What’s Your Ending?

Have fun with this flam & 5 stroke roll launch pad. Come up with as many endings as you can. Play with it for a while and hopefully it’ll start showing up automatically in your playing soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Finish The Fill #6. If you’re in Singapore and would like a free trial drum lesson, send us a message via the contact us page.