From Time to a Fill - creating a smooth flow

This a group of three exercises that I used with beginners to get them moving steadily and smoothly from a groove to a fill and back again. The aim is for the transition between the two halves of the exercise to not affect the time or pulse at all.

Once the exercises I familiar, I like to use it as a warm-up. And recommend using a metronome.

Each exercise is a four-bar phrase, with two bars of time and two bars of fill. One important aim is to become comfortable with moving in and out of the basic stickings - single strokes, double strokes and a paradiddle. Building this flexibility will open more creative possibilities.

The first exercise is with a straight-eighths feel. It is written on the hi-hat, but it can and should be also played on the ride cymbal with the hi-hat on 2 & 4 or all 4.

The second and third exercises use swung time and triplets. Exercise two is with jazz time and exercise three is a shuffle. The sticking patterns remain the same.

With the triplet stickings we are using a double paradiddle, not a paradiddle in triplet form. (Although this can be added by more advanced players, as can any other sticking pattern).

I recommend keeping the stickings on the snare drum until they are fully internalised. After that voicing the stickings can be experimented with, for example by splitting the hands between sound sources.

It is not shown above, but there are other ways to expand this idea with sixteenth-notes and sixteenth-note triplets, as well as with other time feels such as a bossa nova, or a half-time shuffle.

For intermediate and advanced drummers who might think this kind of exercise is too easy. Try it with a rhythm trainer. Set the metronome to play only the first two of the four bars, so that you are playing the fill without the metronome. Can you keep the time?!

Have fun. Make Music.