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By Wesley Newton Published on: Mon May 9, 2022
Follow eighth notes (1-&-2-&-3-&-4-&) and sixteenth note (1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a) grooves to orchestrate fills on the snare, hi-tom, mid-tom and the floor-tom with the kick drum on every right-hand single stroke. We add the fill on 3-&-4-& for 8th note fills, and on 4-e-&-a for 16th note fills.
Accomplished drummer and a Grade 8 in Drums with Distinction from Trinity College of Music, your teacher brings 2 decades of professional experience. He has played with iconic bands such as Groovemeister and Blushing Satellite at prestigious music festivals across the country and internationally.
This blog talks about the interesting parts in playing the drums. If you don’t know what fills mean, they are grooves (combination of rudiments to be precise) played mostly on the hi-tom, mid-tom and the floor-tom and can add flavour to your playing.
Let us start by reminding ourselves that eighth notes are counted as 1-&-2-&-3-&-4-& while sixteenth notes are counted as 1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a.
To begin with, as a reference, let’s take the eighth note groove we learnt in the last lesson as the base. To refresh your memory, that would be hi-hat and bass drum on 1, hi-hat on the & of 1, hi-hat and snare drum on 2, hi-hat on the & of 2, hi-hat and bass drum on 3, hi-hat on the & of 3, hi-hat and snare drum on 4 and ending with the hi-hat on the & of 4.
After a bar of the eighth note groove, we replace 3-&-4-& with the fill. That would be single strokes for four counts leading with the right hand on 3. Keep in mind that on counts 3 and 4, we add a kick drum along with the right-hand single stroke on the snare drum.
If you feel lost or confused at any given time, don’t stress, take a deep breath, exhale slowly and start at a slow pace.
Moving on to sixteenth note fills, things can seem a little tricky. The groove that we would use is the same as the previous fill. Now, instead of adding the fill on 3-&-4-&, we add the fill on 4-e-&-a. Even here, don’t forget to add the kick drum on 4 when you start the fill. This is just because it is a sixteenth note fill. For beginners, this can seem challenging as the initial groove has an eighth note feel while the fill transitions to sixteenth notes.
Here is a visual representation of eighth note and sixteenth note fills:
Get a feel for both the fills at a slow pace and remember to count out loud from start to finish.
It's always a good idea to try experimenting with your fills. Try to play the main groove for about 4 bars and try placing the fill wherever you feel comfortable, so you can know where to place the fill when you play a song.
That concludes this lesson on eighth note and sixteenth note fills. In the next blog post, we look at a slightly tricky technique – playing triplets. Remember to pay attention to the time signatures.
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