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 which should help you get comfortable playing fills around the entire kit. This first one 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. Be sure to keep your time steady when coming out of the fill and back to the beat. Beginners often speed up when playing a fill and then lose the time slightly when they go back to the beat. Practice with your metronome or drum machine to make sure your time is even as you play this example.
Another important aspect of playing fills is coming back to your basic beat after the fill. It is common to hit the crash cymbal on the beat directly after a fill. The fill often finishes with the left hand and the right hand plays the crash on the first beat of the following bar before settling back into the basic beat. Listen to the following example on the recording to hear how effectively this works.
To finish this lesson, here is a drum part which contains several fills. Each one is slightly different, which keeps the sound interesting. The fill in bar 8 lasts only two beats. This is just as common as a full bar fill. This example follows what is known as a 12 bar Blues progression. This is a musical form which is used in many styles of music. Notice the variations in the bass drum and snare drum parts here. If you are playing in a band, listen to what the other players are doing and try to make your part fit in with theirs. Don’t be afraid to try variations and use the crash cymbal where you think it sounds good.
