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Rock Drum Fills #1


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Introduction to Drum Fills

Hey everyone its Jared here and today we're going to talk about some rock drumming fills, and these fills are geared more towards drummers who are just starting out or just getting comfortable with playing different fills.

I've split up twenty different fills over four separate videos!

It's very important that you go through these fields and learn them in the order that they're presented because I present them in a way where it teaches you different techniques along the way.

Because there are billions of fills we could learn and I could sit here and just play a fill and it'll be a little bit different every time and so what I did when I wrote these I really tried to write something that is gonna set you up to be creative and come up with your own fills and teach you to relay the techniques that are really great for you know when writing your own drum fills.


The Philosophy Behind Learning Drum Fills

Okay, so we're gonna start right at the beginning, so even if you're just starting out playing drums this is a great place to start so with all these fills.

I always suggest that you don't just learn to play it once right and then move on to the next one.

I really think you should learn to play it at two different tempos and the tempos that I'm showing you I'm doing gonna do them at 60 and 100 beats per minute

I'd recommend before moving on you play it for two minutes straight without any mistakes or with very little mistakes.

So if you can play all these fills at 100 beats per minute cleanly for two minutes with no mistakes you know when you're ready to move on to the next video within this course, okay?

So I'm going to say it after every fill because I think it's I think it's really important that you get comfortable with the techniques associated with each field before moving on so let's get started on the first drum fill now.


Drum Fill #1:

We're doing eighth notes okay, so eighth notes are basically two hits per one count of the metronome and I'm playing as the first fill is started out with four hits on the snare for eighth notes on the snare two and the high tom and then two on the floor tom.

Now, this might be easy for many, and some of you might some of you might be looking at this one and saying "I can easily play that".

Try and do it for an extended period of time and really focus on how you're playing it not just what you're playing to make sure that you're not burning the stick into the drumhead you're gonna make sure that the drums sing.

You know just like when we play the bass drum and we bury the beater it sounds a certain way and when we play the bass drum and we let the beater come off the head it sounds a little bit different.

All right so with drumming you want to do the same thing you want to really be conscious of that as you play these types of fills and any fills for that matter, okay so I'm going to go into this one and play a few guys at 60 and 100 beats per minute.


Drum Fill #2:

The next fill we're going to discuss is an eighth-note feel again, but the hands are gonna play it in unison, and by unison, I mean the exact same time.

This is something I use all the time when I want to build up into a chorus or build down into a verse but it's something that generally the whole band will do together kind of right and so practice it all at the same volume and then practice it going up in volume and going down in volume.

Okay, here we go.


Drum Fill #3:

I'll demonstrate it for you now the third fill is an eighth-note linear fill. Now by linear, I mean nothing is being played at the same time and you know fill number one was technically linear as well, but it was all with the hands.

And so you know it's we don't really consider that a linear fill when we're not including the feet although technically it is a linear field here. I start incorporating the foot in there. This is where most beginners fall short, and they never incorporate the foot in their fills, so they're playing a nice big fat groove and they go to the fill and it just thins out.

Adding in that one bass drum hit on count two it makes a big difference and when first learning something like this especially a linear feel you might want to just do it on your legs first.

On your legs, it would just look like this, right, left bass, right, left, right, left, right, crash all right.

So what else is different about this well because we're ending with our right hand we're gonna crash with our left and you can also end with your right and crash with your right.

But this is another one of those related techniques that are gonna come up throughout these fill ideas that I'm showing you okay?

So ending with our right on the fill crashing with our left, so let's try it again, right, left bass, right, left, right, left, right then crash back into the beat.

Let's try it!


Drum Fill #4:

Number four is a little bit more complex linear pattern we got two separate bass drums in there

We got a bass drum on count one and we have a bass drum on count four so let's again just on our legs try out this pattern bass right, left, right, left, right, bass left now you could also at the end. Go bass right let's try that bass right, left, right, left and right.

Then you'd crash with your left. If you hit the last note with your left hand you crash with your right.

This is the best way to start this thing even while you're watching this video just do it with me right bass right, left, right, left, right, then right crashed.

All right, let's try it!


Drum Fill #5:

The final fill within this video is something that I like to do actually play the sixteenth notes. But I really wanted to break it down for you more.

So even someone just starting out to play the same idea and so this is kind of built off an accent pattern. But we won't worry about that now.

We'll just worry about the sticking and the orchestration, okay, so we started in the high tom so it goes high tom, snare, snare, high tom, floor tom, snare, snare, high tom then crash.

Everything is alternated. Okay, so it's right, left, right, left, right, left, right, then left. That's writing the whole thing.


Review

And those are the five fills that I want you to start with these work great within rock music you got your linear technique that we're starting to work on you got crashing with the left hand that we're starting to work on.

We've got the unison stuff that we're starting to work on and so this is really gonna help you develop a solid foundation of playing some really cool rock drum fills. So once you can play these each for two minutes straight without any mistakes at the faster tempo feel free to move on to the next video in this course. I'll see you there!

Go to Drum Fill Lesson Video #2 »

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