Tag: drum fill exercises

10 Drum Fills lasting 1 bar – Grade 1

Start going through the sheet slowly, and work up to being able to practice this sheet all the way through as one exercise.

You might want to brush up the Reading Drum Notation sheet to help with reading this sheet.

Related: 10 Beginners drum fills lasting 1 bar
Related (Premium): Beats and Fills Drum Book – Basic Beginners

10 Beginners drum fills lasting 1 bar

Play Right hand on all crotchets (1/4 notes), and Right Left on all of the Quavers (8th Notes) – (opposite for left handers).

Young beginners players could count the crotchets as Tea, and the quavers as “Cof-fee”.

You might want to brush up the Reading Drum Notation sheet to help with reading this sheet.

Related (Premium): Beats and Fills Drum Book – Basic Beginners

10 Short Drum Fills Lasting 2 Beats Each

  1. Slowly play the Snare twice then Tom 1 twice.
  2. Snare, High Tom, Floor Tom.
  3. To play this fill, you have to do a flam on the snare drum and then a flam on tom 1 for 1 beat each.
  4. To play this drum fill, play a flam on Tom 1 then a flam on the floor tom, lasting for 1 beat each.
  5. Play the floor tom with your right hand, the snare with your left and, and hit them both at the same time 4 times to create this short drum fill.
  6. Tom 1 and Floor tom together twice, then Tom 2 and floor tom together twice.
  7. Floor tom + snare together, then bass drum, then floor tom + snare together again.
  8. To play this drum fill, play the Tom 1 and floor tom together, then the bass drum, and then a flam on the snare drum.
  9. Play a flam on the snare, then a bass drum, and then tom 2 and the floor tom together.
  10. Flam on the snare, bass drum on it’s own, then flam on the snare.

10 Maths Drum Fills – Number Combinations adding up to 16

Each line is 1 drum fill, consisting of 16 x 16th notes. What we are doing with this sheet is diving that total number of 16 into various number combinations for different drums. Whilst all music could be related to maths, this exercise is a blatant use of numbers to make up the drum fills. You may hear of styles like ‘Math Rock’, where sometimes all the instruments explore this technique of coming up with and exploring rhythms, time signatures and phrases from a mathmatical stance, in a deliberate and focused way.

For example, an easy drum fill around the kit would be 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16. That’s the drum fill that most drummers are taught first. 4 snares, 4 high toms, 4 medium toms and 4 floor toms.

Play every exercise with a continuous Right Left Right Left sticking (this is the opposite if you are left handed).