One of the biggest problems I see with many drummers is that their groove is disrupted when they play fills. It is as though they are 100% certain about the groove they are playing but when it comes time to play a fill they simply play the first thing that comes to mind.

Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind does not always work with the groove you are playing. If you simply pull a fill out of the air there is a very good chance it will not rhythmically fit with the groove. Therefore, you may speed up, slow down, or even drop a beat from the measure.

If you are going to spend time learning specific grooves, spend and equal amount of time learning specific fills. In fact with my private students, I teach them a new fill with every new groove they learn. Imagine learning just one new groove a week plus one new fill, in a years’ time you will have fifty fills and fifty grooves in your vocabulary.

The good news is that most of the fills will work equally as well with other similar grooves and you do not have to invent a completely new fill for each groove. You can simply change one note of the fill by playing it on another drum or adding a flam to it. This is absolutely the best way to develop a series of fills for a song that will help keep your groove in the pocket. Listen to Steve Gadd, Chad Smith, Kenny Aronoff and other great drummers. This is exactly how they approach playing fills.

I hope this insight will help you become a better drummer. If you are ready to learn some new fills today, take a look at the preview of my Funk/Rock Fill Lesson Series. In this series I will teach you how to play over 50 fills that will work great with a variety of different Funk and Rock grooves.

Gain access to the full 4- Part Lesson Series plus an ever growing library of tutorials by becoming a member of JohnX Online Drum Lessons.  JOIN NOW!

All the best,

JohnX
www.johnxdrums.com