In this fill concept lesson you will be learning some simple eighth note fills that all involve using the snare drum and china cymbal played together to create some very strong accents. This shape is applied in various different ways, often with bass drums surrounding the accented strikes. These fills are pretty simple, the only potentially new thing on this page is the notation for the china cymbal. You can find an explanation of that Here. A small amount of co-ordination between hands and the right foot will be required in some of these fills. If you are struggling with this then This Set Of Exercises may be useful.
A list of fills based on this construction concept are shown below. As well as mixing up the base construction idea I have also thrown in some different fill lengths too. Play these fills after some groove and make sure the transition from groove to fill is even and there are no breaks in timing.
Fill Example 1
Fill Example 2
Fill Example 3
Fill Example 4
Fill Example 5
Fill Example 6
Fill Example 7
Fill Example 8
TASK
- Learn all examples upto a tempo of at least 120bpm.
- Combine different construction ideas to create a wide variety of fills.
- Think up further variations on the given examples.
- Add each example into one of the structures covered previously.
