This week’s drum fills are starting with eighth note triplets… but how will they end? Here’s a few suggestions:

Where To Start?

We’re starting this week’s drum fill with a very common triplet idea – Snare, Bass, Bass. We’re playing the start of the drum fill as a groove fill, so the right hand is still keeping time on the hi-hat.

This is a nice easy way to start a triplet drum fill and it sounds great. You could just play the same again on beats 3 & 4 and you’ll have a drum fill that’ll sound good in most triplet situations. However, we’re gonna get a little more complicated than that!

What Happens Next?

My first ending for this drum fill moves from the starting eighth note triplets into sixteenth note triplets. It uses two common triplet ideas: Right Left Kick and Kick Left Right. I played Right Left Kick for beat 3 and Kick Left Right for beat 4 just change things up a little.

My second ending also uses 16th note triplets to spice things up. Note the interplay beween the hands and bass drum. The flams on beats 3 & 4 keep the fill moving forward and give it a more aggressive sound.

My third ending features a classic build up ending on beat 4 after a flurry of 16th note triplets on beat 3.

Ending number 4 features a nice simple RLKKRL pattern over beats 3 & 4. Again we’re using 16th note triplets to add some speed and excitement to the fill.

The final ending sneaks in a bucket of fish between 2 eighth note triplet partials. It’s easier to play than it look, you might need to take it slow first though. We’re dealing with nested triplets here. We’re already playing 8th note triplets and we’ve be subdividing those into 16th note triplets on every fill here. Now we’re taking two of those 16th note triplets and changing them into three 16th note triplets occurring in the same space.

Between the snare drum on the “puh” of 3 and the bass drum on “let” of 3 we have to squeeze in two notes. Play this very slowly with a metronome that is counting 8th note triplets and focus on getting the snare and bass drum on the right beats. You might want to count it “3 bucket o’ fish 4 bucket o’ fish” where “Buc” is on the “puh” and “Fish” is on the “let” of the beat. Take it slow to start with.

How Will You Finish The Fill?

There’s 5 of my endings for this drum fill, but there are still a lot more ways to finish it. What will you come up with? Spend time exploring your kit with this fill idea.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Finish The Fill. If you’re in Singapore and you’d like a free trial drum lesson. Send us a message via the contact us page.