Tag: drum fill exercises

1 Beat Snare Drum Fills with drum beats exercises

Sometimes in drum sheet music you will see parts of the music that aren’t written. There may be a space in he music, with an instruction such as ‘develop’, ‘ad lib’, ‘cont. sim’ or ‘fill’. In these examples, there are spaces marked out for drum fills to be played for the duration of 1 beat at the end of the bar.

There are 4 different drum fills to choose from for each exercise. You could pick any fill and mix and match with any exercise.

By learning and playing through these exercises, you will build up an understanding of the type of fills you could add in as short little breaks in the drum beats to add interest to your drumming. 1 beat fills could be used at the end of a section, or during a section of music for a bit of variation in the groove.

Related: 10 beginners drum beats with 2 beat drum fills exercises

Subdivision exercise with linear drum fills

At grade 5-6 you should have good knowledge of triplets, 16th notes and sextuplets, and you will need to be able to switch seamlessly between them. This exercise works on changing between
triplets, 16th notes, and sextuplets like usual subdivision exercises, but with the twist of adding some interesting and challenging drum fills rather than just one one drum (usually just played as snare drum 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).