To Fill Or Not To Fill: A "Fill"osophy For Drum Fills


Photo by Jasper Smith

Imagine a song with no drum fills. Sounds pretty boring, right? Well, keep imagining. What is there if there are no fills? There’s a beat pattern. There’s a home base. Most songs contain probably 90% beat patterns and 10% fills - and that’s pretty generous for the fills. It makes sense that you should focus on your beat pattern more than your fills, but somehow, fills can get more attention. WHY IS THAT?! I believe it’s because fills get the credit of creating moments. We all want to make moments happen. But a question all drummers need to ask themselves is “Is the moment I want to create a moment the song needs right now?” If you’re brave and honest enough to answer “no” you’ll see that the common listener will agree that the song is often better served with your beat pattern than it is with your fill.

But what if the song really is better served with the moment you want to create? Well, to really pull it off, you have to play it in time. This is a really big issue for some drummers, especially for those just starting out. So if you have trouble with this, I have three questions for you that I hope will help:

  1. Are you holding your breath? You probably aren’t even paying attention to your breathing when you play. Benny Greb talks about what happens when you hold your breath during a fill. He says that your body thinks, “oh no, where is our oxygen? We need that to stay alive! Why did it stop? Is it because of this fill? Let’s get it over with as fast as possible so we can get our air back.” Maybe try breathing out for the whole fill? or breathing in for the whole fill? I don’t know! Just breathe! Don’t stop breathing - whatever you do.
  2. Where are your shoulders? An easy way to tell if you’re relaxed is to check where your shoulders are. Are they up high? That’s bad news. You need to relax. Are they down low? Good news! You’re relaxed. Maybe you need to adjust how your drums are set up so that you stay relaxed.
  3. Can you duplicate it? A good exercise is to play the same fill two times in a row. In order to do that, you have to know what you played the first time. In other words, you have to be intentional about what you play the first time. You can make it up, but you have to make it up intentionally. This will help you hear your fill before you have to play it. If you can hear your fill in time then you can play your fill in time. There is also a certain confidence that you portray when you hear what you're going to play before you play it.

Remember that a fill is a moment. Enjoy the moment! Live in it! Take your time with it because it’s so special. There’s no need to rush through it. Professional musicians are almost never in a hurry to say what they’re saying musically. They are relaxed and place every note right where they want it.


Troubleshooting Fills


Have you ever noticed that a fill that works really well in one song may not work so well in a different song? That’s because the context is different between those songs. That fill might work because maybe the singer isn't singing and the guitar is holding out a long chord, or because everyone in the band drops out and the drums are making an entrance for the first time. Whatever the case, your context - what other instruments are playing and what has been played up to that point - can affect whether the fill works as well or not.

Another reason it may not work is because the rhythm of the fill isn’t a rhythm that fits the new song. If your beat pattern is made up of strictly 8th notes, it’s going to sound a little weird whenever you play a fill that has 16th notes the first time. In this case it would be much more appropriate to play a fill that has just 8th notes in it. However, if your beat pattern has a lot of 16th notes in it, it would be very appropriate for you to play a 16th note fill. You should be conscious of the rhythms that have already been played before you introduce new ones.

My last thought about fills is that not all fills need a crash at the end of them. Cymbals are loud and annoying to mix live anyway. Let another instrument emphasize the new section of the song. I remember the first time someone told me that, I started listening for songs where the drummer didn’t crash after his fill. It happens a lot more often than I realized. I’ve since come to the conclusion that professionals don’t need crash cymbals to sound good. They intentionally choose to use them to serve the song. Likewise, professionals don't need fills to sound good. They intentionally choose to use them to serve the song.

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