Playing Fills
Once you can play a variety of basic beats, you are ready to start playing fills. A fill (or fill-in) is a musical idea that breaks away from the basic beat and leads into either a new section or a repeat of the basic beat. The easiest way to start playing fills is to leave your basic pattern and play a bar of eighth notes on the snare drum before returning to the basic beat, as demonstrated in the following example. When playing the snare drum fill in bar 2, begin with the right hand and then alternate both hands. Take care not to speed up or slow when changing between the fill and the beat.
Now try this variation. The fill here is played on the snare drum and the small and medium tom toms. Once again the fill is played with alternate sticking, beginning with the right hand. When learning to play fills, it is useful to keep the bass drum going on each beat as demonstrated here.
Here are some examples using fills which should help you become comfortable moving around the drum kit. The first example alternates between the snare drum and the small and medium tom toms.
This example moves around between all three tom toms and the snare drum.
Once you are comfortable moving around the drums, try alternating a fill with a basic beat as shown in this example.
