How To Read Drum Music (Fills)

Today, I'm going to give you a lesson about how to write drum music. If you want to put in something a little bit more interesting like a fill at the end of the fourth bar, then all we need to do is we have a lane above the bar or a bracket with the word fill. Now, you'll notice that the lane itself is above the entire bar.

This tells me that I've got to play a fill for four beats. There are four time slashes underneath and the fill is a bar long. I've also got the section to repeat at the end so I'm going to repeat those four bars.

Here we go: One, two, three, four. (Iain plays Drums).



Okay.

So the drum fill wasn't notated. Again, it's up to the drummer, it's up to the player to make that up, but if you're writing drum music, that's a very quick and easy way to notate for a drum fill. However, we can make the drum fill as long or as short as want.

Here, I've only put the lane for the fill above the third and the fourth beats, so this time the fill was only two beats long. Same idea: rock-style, for three bars and a two beat fill at the end of the fourth with the repeat. One, two, three, four.

(Iain plays drums)



So, that time the fill was only two beats long and it started on the third beat of the bar. Very simple ways of notating for drum fills. However sometimes, we might want to notate for specific rhythms for the drum fill and here we have an example of something called the rhythmic notation.

This is where the rhythm of the drum fill has been notated, but it's left up to the drummer who is actually going to play.

So, the rhythm here on the snare sounds like this: one, two, three, four. (Iain Plays drum).





So, there's the rhythm. I can now use that rhythm and play it however I want around the kit. Again, four bars of music with a fill at the end and then repeated once more.

One, two, three, four. (Iain plays drums).


Alright, so I'm taking the rhythmic notation and I'm using the rhythm idea and I'm playing around the kit as I want.

Another good way, very popular way of notating drum fills. It allows the drummer a little bit more freedom. The last style of fill that you may come across or you might want to notate in your drum charts is a fully notated fill.

This is basically where you've got great fill idea and you want to notate it in the piece of music. So here we have it going around clockwise. Snare drum, small tong, middle tong, floor and the fill sounds like this: one, two, three, four.

(plays drum). So, let's put the fully notated fill at the end of the fourth bar. one, two, three, four (plays drums).

Okay, so fully notated fill. Let's put some of these ideas together now in a short chart.


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