In this lesson you will learning fills based on groupings of six sixteenth notes in the time signature of 6/4. When applying this syncopated idea in previous time signatures you would get a couple of full blocks of six followed by shortened grouping, however in this time signature you can fit four full groupings. The groupings will still be syncopated against the pulse, they just fall in line nicely with the bar line. Similar concepts have been applied in different time signatures and in different forms, you can find some of these linked at the bottom of the page a long with some other lessons you may find useful when learning these parts.
As discussed above, for this fill concept you will be applying a '6666' sixteenth note grouping. Each of these groups of six will then be orchestrated to created an interesting fill. In some cases this will be a straight move around the kit, others will take a more musical approach. If you have covered lessons on fills like this before this will be very straight forward, you will just need to spend time getting comfortable with this rhythm within the new time signature. The '6666' rhythm is shown below. I have included phrase markings to clarify where the start of each block is.
Spend some time getting comfortable with the grouping, preferably by playing the pattern above a long to a metronome. The accents are there to highlight the start of each block but won't necessarily be applied within the fills.
Listed below are some orchestrations of this rhythm that create some interesting fill patterns.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all example fills up to a tempo of at least 130bpm.
- Combine the ideas above to create a wide variety of fills.
- Think up new variations on the original pattern and create some variations on the given parts.
- Apply the fills to a structured pattern.
