Through this page you will be learning a simple fill construction idea based on the single stroke 7 movement that involves replacing the first note of the rudiment with a kick. Placing that bass drum note and maintaining a solid even rhythm can be difficult, I recomend spending some time on the first example below playing it slowly and gradually building it up. Most of the examples given below are half bar fills but you can easily extend these by padding out the first half of the bar with other fill construction ideas.
When playing these fills, you are literally removing the first right hand and playing a kick instead. The rest of the sticking follows as you would expect, so the first hand stroke will be played on the left.
Fill 1
Fill 2
Fill 3
Fill 4
Fill 5
Fill 6
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all grooves up to a tempo of at least 130bpm.
- Create further variations on these grooves.
- Apply these grooves to a phrased piece as either the groove or fill. .
