The exercises given in this lesson will be similar to our A B Exercises Using Half Bar Sixteenth Note Fills but this time the fill will be slightly shorter again. As in the previous lesson, the aim here is to improve your ability to switch from groove to fill and back again without any breaks in timing. If you have covered the lesson linked above this should be pretty straight forward and you will also be learning some very common fills.
In previous lessons we discussed that a 'half bar fill' was one that filled two beats worth of a 4/4 bar. By the same logic, a Quarter Bar Fill will be one that only fills one beats worth of the bar. That means you will have three beats of music before the fill.
As with all of these phrasing and fill application lesson, it is important you play the exercises along to a metronome to ensure your are getting the timing right. The main aim of this lesson to is work on getting rid of any gaps when transitioning from groove to fill and back again so this should be your primary focus. If at any point you find your self struggling with an exericse it may be worth learning the fill separately before attempting to play the full two bar pattern.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
TASK:
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all phrases up to a tempo of at least 120bpm.
- Create your own versions of these patterns by varying the orchestration of the fill and the groove.
Up Next
I recommend trying our A B Exercises Using Three Quarter Bar Sixteenth Note Fills or A A A B Exercises Using Sixteenth Note Fills next.
