So here we get to the final five fills in the rock drum fills course and in the final lesson is actually where you get to apply all these fun fills and these fun techniques you've been learning.
So let's jump right in to the first fill and I just will quickly mention if you have it practice the previous three lessons and you're jumping in right to the end.
It's probably not a good idea and you probably want to go back and actually learn the fills and follow the steps because these fills are written for this course and are written to be completed within steps.
The first fill we basically have a bass to run count one then the right hand the floor tom left on the snare and then another bass drum so goes bass, right, left, bass then it goes floor tom snare.
That snare hit is actually an eighth note which means the next snare hit falls on the A of two so floor tom, snare, rest, snare to E and A
I do that all with my left hand. You don't have to but I prefer to do all of my left hand.
Then I'm counting three two bass drum hits and the two in the snare count for two bass drum hits two in the floor tom.
Here we go - I'll play it for you at slow and fast tempos.
The next fill we're going to talk about is a little bit different. It has a lot of the different techniques that we've been using throughout this course.
Now the first one I want to talk to you about is, remember when we did the half bar feels, I said not all fills need to be a bar and some fills can be many different lengths.
This fill actually starts on the end of four so it starts on the previous bar.
You'll notice two hi-hat strokes there and I'm playing just right, left and right, left on the snare and then bass, bass and I go right hand on the high tom, one bass drum again, this fill is very linear.
One bass drum and then a right, left on the floor tom and then from here this is where it gets challenging.
I go right left and then I need to go right, left on the hi-hat so we're kind of starting to get into a little bit of crossovers.
This feel is very gospel sounding just because it includes the hi-hat includes that the floor tom going to the hi-hat which I absolutely love.
So it goes floor tom, floor tom, hi-hat, hi-hat, snare, bass, bass, and then I'm ending with right, left, left on the snare drum.
You could also end right, left, right, and crash out.
I prefer to end right, left, left. It's kind of a trick if you ever need to end a fill with an odd group of notes you can always go right, left, left or right, right, left and crash.
Okay, so I'll play this for you at two separate tempos.
Number three is a very cool feel that I absolutely love to play recently, and have just become obsessed with it so I really want to show you guys this pattern earlier than I learnt it. It took me way too many years to discover this pattern.
Now in the previous lesson to this course we were actually talking about the five grouping of sixteenth notes. Right, left, right, left, left.
Here we're going to do seven, so we're going to do an extra right left, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, left.
So it's basically like the five, just add in two extra notes now because this is a group of seven.
Or play the sixteenth notes and we want to make a one bar fill. We play this pattern two times and that gives us 14 notes I don't want to get too into math on you here or too much of a math school teacher or anything but we have two groups of seven fourteen notes and sixteenth notes.
We're just going to add a right left on the snare to finish it a lot of times.
I'll actually accent those last two notes just to kind of set it up back into the groove so check this out I know you're going to absolutely love it.
In the fourth fill we're actually going to start incorporating part of a rudiment.
Now with rudiments you know they're written a certain way like a single paradiddle is written right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left, and the double paradiddle is right, left, right, left, right, right, left, right, left, right, left, left.
Some people think that you always have to play them exactly as they're written or in their full form - but what I like to do is just take parts of these rudiments.
So just like we take part of a double stroke roll because double stroke rolls right, right, left, left, right, right, left.
Sometimes we'll just play it right, right you know and so with the single paradiddle I like to just play the right, left, right, right.
So this fill is similar to that. It goes right, left, right, right, bass, bass, right, left, right, right, bass, bass, right, left, right, left.
It's cool fill check it out.
For this last fill I wanted to create a little bit of chaos.
Alright, so we actually start this feel early again. I would say this fill actually starts on count four of the bar before. Yes, we're still hitting the backbeat and we're still hitting count for the snare.
It kind of like the feels like the start of the fill whereas in the previous fill, I think it was fill number two, it was definitely more starting on the and of four.
So really learn that rhythm let's just tap it.
I'm playing those all with my left hand and so really just focus on the melody.
Focus on how it sounds and listen to it a bunch and once you start listening to it a bunch you'll internalize it and you'll have a much easier time actually playing.
Okay, so here we go. I'm going to play this for you guys in separate tempos.
And there you have it! There are 20 fills that are really going to get you started on playing fills in the style of rock music.
I really encourage you to start experimenting with some of these on your own and just use some of the ideas so you know maybe you're going to use the idea of incorporating the hi-hat.
Just the close height or maybe the open height or incorporating the crash in the middle of the fill or using different stickings like the five sticking the seven sticking or the rudiments like we did.
There's so many different things you can do to create fills and so many times we as drummers just kind of get caught in a rut you know we'll just play be playing singles and everything will sound the same.
You'll wonder why, it's because you really have an expanded your vocabulary and so when you start expanding your vocabulary with different patterns and different ideas you're going to become more creative behind the drum set.
You're going to be able to play better sounding fills so I highly recommend that if you're watching this video you haven't gone through the previous fills I'd recommend you do learn them at the slow tempo at least if you can do it learn them at the fast tempo play them for two minutes straight perfect and then you can go ahead and move on.
Now that's the end of this lesson but one side you learned all these fills with in this lesson wants you to go check with a final lesson in the rock drum fills course and that's actually a play along which which is really fun for you to practice until it feels alright.
I'll see you there!
Go to Drum Fill Lesson Video #5 »
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