In this fill construction lesson you will be learning a half bar fill that decorates a run of straight sixteenth notes with four thirty second notes at the start of the pattern. This will all be played as single strokes so should be mostly quite simple but you may need to work a little on your hand speed. At the bottom of the page you will find a collection of links to other lessons that may be helpful when learning this part.
The rhythm for the fill will be four 32nd notes followed by six 16th notes and this is shown below.
Remember that the dash note heads on the first two beats are place holders, these will be filled in with groove when applied in context. Spend some time getting comfortable with this rhythm, making sure your hand technique remains good over those really quick notes. There are some useful lessons on this at the bottom of the page. The rhythm will sound like four sixteenths and six eighth notes played at a higher tempo, thinking of the part this way may help you learn it a little quicker.
Listed below are several examples of this part orchestrated around the kit, use these as a starting point to create your own parts. Groove hasn't been added in but make sure you practice switching from groove to the fill.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
TASK:
- Learn all examples up to a tempo of at least 130bpm.
- Apply different orchestrations to create your own parts.
- Extend the fill to being a full bar pattern.
- Add groove into the part and create some longer phrases.
