Jazz Drum Fills | Drum Lessons

In this video lesson, I wanna talk about some jazz drum fills. Now these fills are all based of, of 8th note triplets, which are counted one trip – let, two trip – let, three trip – let, four trip – let. So we have twelve 8th note triplets in one bar. I wanna give an example of one bar of a jazz beat, one bar of the fill, okay. Now, with of these fills we can use various stick patterns whether it’s single stroke roll which is right – left - right – left - right – left - right – left and so on. We can go right - right – left or we can go right – left – left. I would suggest practicing all of these to get comfortable to get more creative around the drum set. Now if we look at exercise number one, all it is, is twelve 8th note triplets on the snare drum. Allow me to demonstrate how this sounds. Exercise number two is actually a very nice fun easy fill to play. All we’re gonna do is put three triplets on each drum starting on the snare drum. So we’re gonna have three 8th note triplet on the snare, three on the small tom, three on the mid tom, three on the floor tom. I’m gonna demonstrate this with the right – left – left sticking pattern. Watch this. okay, you’re gonna notice in exercise number three, this one’s pretty cool coz it gets you moving around the drum set in a way that you probably wouldn’t naturally try on your own. Now the sticking that I’m gonna use for this one is a right – left – left. Once again, it’s also strengthening my weak hand too. So what I’m gonna do in the fill, I’m gonna play the right cymbal with the bass drum, two left hands on the snare. Bring my right hand over to the high hut, play that with the bass drum, two left hand snares. Right hand back over to the right cymbal with the bass drum, two left hand snares, back on over to the high hut with the bass drum, two left hand snares. Watch how this one sounds. Exercise number four, we’re actually gonna use the sticking right – right – left. Now take a look at the sheet music. This is pretty cool. If you look close, you notice we got two small toms, so I’m gonna go right – right, left on the snare. Then we move over to the mid tom right – right, left on the snare. Then we got two floor toms right – right, left on the snare. The last three notes are three snare drums. So you can either go right – left – right, right – right – left, whatever you want. I wanna keep it consistent, I’m gonna go right – right – left, right – right – left, right – right – left, right – right – left. Keeps my right hand ready for a crash cymbal or if I wanna go back to the right. Watch this one. Well this concludes the section on jazz drum fills. I hope you had as much fun watching them as I did playing. What I would suggest, go to the drum set, start practicing nice and slow, speed them up, work on playing with dynamics, play them soft, play them loud, get creative, enjoy.

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