Can someone school me on drum fills?

[T Gobbs]

Most of the shit I've recorded is fill-less because I'm a coward who doesn't understand toms. Can someone help me out?

 

[Orvillain]

I highly recommend you spend a day watching Mike Johnston's Youtube channel. Start here:

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Most of the shit I've recorded is fill-less because I'm a coward who doesn't understand toms. Can someone help me out?

After watching a lot of drum instruction vids, it should be a lot easier to listen to drum parts you like and be able to count out what's happening. Like most things music related, copying stuff you like is a really fast way to learn how to create your own stuff.

 

[metropolis_4]

The purpose of a fill is to guide the band. Show them where a change is or where a hit is.
As a general rule of thumb, your fill should be about the same length as the note you’re hitting. So if it’s an 8th note hit you only want an 8th note fill in front to show the band where the hit is, if it’s a long note or a transition in the song it can be longer.

It’s good to practice hits on different beats, and different rhythms. Start off by playing 4 a 4 measure phrase and play a 1 beat fill at the end of measure 4 landing on beat 1 of measure 1. Set a metronome and keep looping this, trying different ideas for the fill each time.

Then start to change it up.

• Try playing a 2 beat fill, or a 3 beat fill landing on 1
• Try landing on beat 2 instead of beat 1
• Try adding a series of rhythmic hits and punch them

Just like coming up with guitar fills you try a bunch of things, find what you like, and start to establish a bag of tricks you can pull from as needed