Bill Powelson's School of Drums Provided by: Bill Powelson's, Homestudy Institute of Drums. Playing Perfect Ad-lib Fills (rolls) in Mid-Song, EVERY TIME! Working-drummers do essentially two things on-stage, with the band. We play BEATS and ROLLS! Even our SOLOS' are made up of BEATS and ROLLS! The drummer who dies with the most BEATS and ROLLS . . . WINS! WHAT IS A FILL? A 'fill' is a very short ROLL the drummer may play on the snare drum, tom-toms or other accessories, to 'FILL' the dead spots in a song. Usually, we may play a 'fill' when the vocalist or singer takes a breath between the verses of a song. Sometimes we play 'fills' to add dynamics as the band goes into the more exciting parts of a song, like the bridge, chorus or instrumental ride. Playing Perfect Fills: ALL MYSTERIES SOLVED! In this lesson, I want to help those of you who may be having trouble with fills and ROLLS. This is a very simple lesson, but it could save years of grief after you've learned to adapt it to the songs you'll be hearing every day. AD-LIB FILLS: Ad-lib fills, are fills we may create or invent on our own. We may do ANYTHING as a fill, if our TIMING doesn't get lost in the shuffle . . . . Our fill could be one note or 100 notes, provided we never lose track of the (bass drum) beat. THIS LESSON WILL TEACH YOU TO CONNECT WITH AD-LIB FILLS IN MID-SONG, EVERY TIME! NO MISTAKES! EVER! In a nutshell . . . IT IS ALL IN THE WAY WE USE THE BASS DRUM TO 'MARK-TIME' AS WE MOVE FROM A BEAT, TO A FILL, THEN BACK TO THE BEAT. Simply learn to maintain a steady bass-drum to mark-time while playing every fill! Once this habit has been established, SOLID TIMING and thundering, explosive fills will be the end result. TO BE MORE SPECIFIC: As we play most beat patterns in 4/4, the bass is 'natural' when played as half-notes on the counts of 1 & 3. If we maintain the bass at a constant (half-note) tempo . . . and remember to return to the beat pattern on a bass note (any bass drum note) . . . it will always work out. IN A NUTSHELL . . . Play a Basic Rock beat with the bass on 1 & 3. That's the beat you just learned in the 'Drummers Aptitude Test'. Drop your fill. Play ANYTHING on a tom or the snare, but keep your bass constant! Return to the hi-hat and resume the beat on the next (or any) bass drum. The bass will always be at the same tempo. Each bass note represents the potential resumption of the beat you were playing before the fill. DO THIS RIGHT NOW! Play the 8TH 'ROCK' BEAT' we learned in the previous lesson! Just get it going and repeat it over and over . . . NOW, . . . STOP the hands completely, but keep the BASS DRUM going. That 'empty-time' between the bass drums . . . IS WHERE YOUR FILL WILL GO! Resume with the beat ON ANY BASS DRUM! You just played a fill . . . but it was pretty lame! You didn't DO ANYTHING around the toms or other drums DURING THE EMPTY-TIME. NOW . . . DO THE SAME THING AGAIN . . . BUT DO SOMETHING, THIS TIME. Play an IMPROVISED (ad-libbed) FILL . . . within the DEAD SPACE . . . then return to the beat. That's all there is to it! Practice many types of fill patterns using this same simple formula. Make them up as you go . . . or listen, then imitate the drummers you'll be hearing on your favorite recordings. Actually, ad-lib fills are mixed assortments of all the standard fills I'll teach you in my 100-lesson course. But, no matter what you decide to play as an ad-lib 'fill', it will end up being a mixed-bag of different note-value rolls and stroke-pattern arrangements . . . OR, THE VERY SAME rolls and fills I'll be showing you in the remainder of course. In other words, we can mix any roll-type with any other roll-type. We can do ANYTHING, and it will ALWAYS end up being SOMETHING, as long as we remain in-time with the music. AD-LIB 'FILL' SUGGESTIONS . . . Mix ANY note-value type (ie; 8th-notes, 16ths, whatever) , with any other value type, Mix fast notes with slower notes . . . but keep one ear into the recorded music and return in-time with the recorded drummer and the beat of the song. Accent certain notes louder than others . . . Rest or leave out notes randomly as you prefer . . . Move to different parts of the kit, while doing all the above. The choices are endless and THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, if we maintain our timing, by . . . MARKING-TIME WITH THE BASS DRUM, and RETURN IN-TIME, WITH THE BEAT OF THE MUSIC. TO GET THE HANG OF THIS . . . You'll eventually want to LEARN ALL THE STANDARD, CLASSIC FILLS, in 'half-measure' segments, as they are taught later in my LARGE SERIES OF ONLINE LESSONS, entitled, 'Rudiments, Rolls and Fills. They're only avaiable at the password site . . . (for PAID, PERMANENT students and members only.) In the structured lessons, you'll learn to play a bass drum note along with the first note of EACH HALF-MEASURE FILL SEGMENT, so that the BASS DRUM will ALWAYS BE CONSTANT, whether playing a BEAT OR A FILL. It becomes a HABIT after awhile. We'll learn ALL THE CLASSIC FILLS that way in the latter, more advanced lessons. All the lessons of the HOMESTUDY COURSE are set up with this (bass drum) trick in mind. As you learn to play the standard fills (single strokes, double strokes, 8th triplets and paradiddles) the way they are shown in the lessons . . . your ability with ad-lib fills will quickly improve even more. It will become NATURAL HABIT, to mark-time with the bass drum, no matter what sort of improvised or ad-lib fill you may play. Also, later in the homestudy course, you will learn to extend all of the standard fills and a few others, to ANY LENGTH you choose. These standard fills may be varied around the kit, to any of the toms and stretched to any lengths, using this same 'half-measure' formula, marking-time with half notes on the bass drum. You'll easily and quickly discover that your fills may be ANY LENGTH, (ie; half-measure, whole-measure, one-and-one-half measures, two-measures or more.) It is the drummers choice and it is easy to accomplish, once we 'feel' the bass drum part and the half-measure segments of each fill, first. After that, it's a simple matter of doubling, tripling or quadrupling and mixing the half-measure patterns. MAKE A BOOK-MARK RIGHT NOW! Within a few days, you should suddenly realize that these lessons have ACTUALLY WORKED! You are going to find yourself playing along with song after song, and ADDING FILLS AS WELL. It will begin to occur as you 'LISTEN' to your favorite music and as you begin to 'THINK' about what you've learned HERE. You will WANT to learn more, and you'll want to return to these lessons and read over them again . . . SO, MAKE A BOOK-MARK, NOW! THERE'S PLENTY MORE TO LEARN! So why not ENROLL RIGHT NOW and GET SET-UP WITH ALL 125-LESSONS AND YOUR PERMANENT MEMBERSHIP? Check out the FREE BONUSES I'm offering with this SPECIAL, time-sensitive, LIMITED OFFER. CLICK HERE TO DISCOVER A CLEAR-CUT PATH TO ALL YOUR DRUMMING DREAMS!" Don't you owe it to yourself to investigate this a little further? It's quite possible you may scratch around in the dark for the next 20-years, if you don't get it here and now! International Copyright Secured @ Bill Powelson 1994 all rights reserved.