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| MID-SONG, EVERY TIME! NO MISTAKES! EVER! In a nutshell . . . TO BE MORE SPECIFIC: WHAT'S A FILL? A 'fill' is a very short roll the drummer may play on the snare drum or tom-toms to 'FILL' the dead spots in a song. Usually, we fill when the vocalist or singer takes a breath between the verses of a song. Sometimes we play 'fills' to add dynamics as the band goes into the more exciting parts of a song, like the bridge, chorus or instrumental ride. AD-LIB FILLS: Ad-lib fills, are fills you may create on your own. If your timing doesn't get lost in the shuffle . . . you may do ANYTHING as a fill. It could be one note or 100 notes, provided you never lose track of the (bass drum) beat. If you maintain the bass at a constant (half-note) tempo . . . and remember to return to your beat pattern on a bass note (any bass drum note) . . . it will always work out. NOTE: When you play basic rock (the beat you learned in the 'Drummers Aptitude Test'), you will be playing half notes on the bass. Simply maintain the same bass tempo as you play your fills, and you will never be lost. Play any idea that sounds good with the song . . . just be certain to re-connect 'in-time' with the music and the drummer on the recording. Actually, ad-lib fills are mixed assortments of all the standard fills I'll teach you in my 80 lesson course. But, no matter what you decide to play as an ad-lib 'fill', it will end up being a mixed bag of different note value rolls and stroke pattern arrangements . . . those very same rolls and fills I'll show you in the course. In other words, you can mix (classic rolls) 8th Triplets with 16th Singles, Doubles, or Paradiddles. . . or ANYTHING, and it will ALWAYS end up being SOMETHING, as long as you remain in-time with the drummer on the recording and the music. AD-LIB 'FILL' SUGGESTIONS . . .
The choices are endless and THERE ARE
NO MISTAKES, if you maintain your timing, by . . . MARKING-TIME WITH THE BASS
DRUM and RETURN IN-TIME, WITH THE BEAT OF THE MUSIC.
To get the hang of this . . . You'll eventually want to learn
all the standard fills in 'half measure' segments, later in the course. You'll learn
to play a bass drum note along with the first note of each half-measure fill
segment, so that your BASS DRUM is ALWAYS CONSTANT, whether you
are playing a BEAT OR A FILL. All my lessons in the HOMESTUDY COURSE are set up this in mind. If you learn to play the standard fills (single strokes, double strokes, 8th triplets and paradiddles) as they are shown in the lessons . . . your ability with ad-lib fills will quickly improve even more. In my homestudy course, you will learn to extend all of the standard fills and a few others, to any length you choose. These standard fills may be varied around the kit, to any of the toms and stretched to any lengths, using this same 'half-measure' formula, marking-time with half notes on the bass drum. Your fills may be any length you choose; half-measure, whole-measure, one-and-one-half measures, two-measures or more. It is your choice and it is easy to accomplish, once you 'feel' the bass drum part and the half-measure version of each fill, first. After that it's a simple matter of doubling, tripling or quadrupling and mixing the half-measure patterns that have been previously mastered. TO SIMPLIFY: (Another
approach)
That's all there is to it. Practice many types of fill patterns using this same simple formula. Make them up as you go . . . or listen, then imitate the drummers you hear on your favorite recordings. Within a few days, you may suddenly realize that these lesssons have actually worked. You are going to find yourself playing along with song after song and adding fills too.
There's plenty more to learn . . . |
