is a lack of fills a problem for a first gig?

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Hello, just wondering what people think –

So I’ve been in my first band for a few months now, its going well and there’s talk of booking our first gig in the next couple of months.

I can play most of our songs pretty well, but I’m lacking in fills and crashes (some songs I don’t play any fills at all!). I tend to play safe most of the time and simply keep a good groove for the band.

Does anyone think this would be a problem for a live performance? I’m quite short of practice time at the moment so I find learning fills and more complicated sections of songs really difficult.

Also, at the moment I’m still trying to get to grips with the transition from e-kit to acoustic, which is time consuming in itself! My thought is a tight beat and good sound takes priority over fills etc.

But at the same time I’m worried my playing will appear boring or sub-standard in some way.

Interested to know what you guys think!
Thanks
 
Playing the songs in steady time
Knowing the "form/structure" of the song - Verse/Chorus/Bridge etc.
Creating a good atmosphere for the other musicians
Song starts/count-offs and ends.
Watching the other musicians and acknowledging their cues
Smile, so the audience can see you are enjoying the music.


These are all much more important than drum fills.

Best of luck
Mick
 
When your new, time and steadyness beats all

Get threw the gig. that is all that matters. Don't even do a fill if you don't need to.

As you improve and get comfortable add them in.. I'd rather hear a drummer keep good, time than play a sloppy fill that derails the song
 
Yes, steady time is important, but the drums are supposed to accompany the music, so YEEEESSSSSSS, you're supposed to do more than just play a f***ing beat! You're a musician; not a wind-up monkey.

Steady time is of course important, but crashes are pretty damn important, too! In most songs, a crash announces when there's a new part of the song. The crash cymbal says "here's the chorus", or "here's the bridge" or "here's a really important note/chord/moment/whatever". Having them in their proper place will help the band to navigate the song, and sound more like the recordings that we all know and love. If adding in the crashes causes your timing to become unsteady, well, that's what practice is for! Get used to playing crashes with steady timing; you'll do it often in most songs, and playing them will help you to better understand and memorize the song form.

Is it a problem not to play fills? Not all fills are created equal, so it depends. Some songs have fills that are brief and (literally) "fill in" some musical space (that's where the term comes from). So, it's not a big deal if they're not played. But some songs have fills that do more for the song. They're statements, or parts, that go along with other parts of the song, or stand by themselves. For example, In The Air Tonight has a great big drum fill that almost everyone knows and expects to hear. An audience who likes music, knows music, and will recognize when this type of fill is played accurately.

Once the beat is going well, then add the crashes, and then add important, statement-type fills. Finally, add other fills and complexity as you go along. You have a couple months; you'll be fine!
 
I'd add this. Good tempo and steady meter beats all, no matter if you're new or not. Fills...wait till you feel them, not before.
 
Depends on the kind of music.

If you are playing "Jack and Dianne," then yes, you need to learn THE fill!

If you are playing AC/DC, then maybe you don't need to learn as many fills.

If you are playing Americana/bluegrassy-type music and all you are doing is train beats with brushes, then maybe not so much.

What kind of music are you doing?
 
When your new, time and steadyness beats all

I'd rather hear a drummer keep good, time than play a sloppy fill that derails the song

Never mind when you're new. There's guys who've been playing years and haven't mastered taste or time.

They're the two most overlooked things in drumming and arguably the two most important.

I'm pretty sure most of the working drummers on here have made more money from playing time than the drum equivalent of fret wanking. Brown Eyed Girl has made me more money than Van Morrison :)
 
A great groove, with solid time, delivered with authority, is absolutely priority 1. Appropriately placed crashes are an integral part of that delivery, so you need to get those nailed down. With the exception of signature fills in covers, you can get through a song without snare / tom fills, but eventually, you should strive to get those in place too - but ----------------

Don't attempt anything you can't pull off reliably, without stressing yourself, & without upsetting the time. An omission is almost always better than a screw up.
 
Surprised to hear all the "just play time" opinions. There's a couple months to go until the gig. Are you men or are you mice?
 
I direct you to 3 drummers:
Phil Rudd
Frank Beard
Joey Kramer

These guys have made careers of playing solid time with a low amount of fills. What you should notice is the short fills they do use are at the right moment, then it's back to the time.

You don't have to be Neil Peart to make your mark. Serve the song first, your embellishment comes later.
 
Good time and groove is a necessity, but if a newbie a poorly executed or misplaced fill is a real distraction and song killer (oh yeah I know about that). Also you'll find you don't have the skills to pull off some fills (raise my hand again), but that doesn't mean you ignore it-just ad lib something that will work and you can pull off (likely other musicians in group are doing the same unless a pro group). A fill is suppose to fill in and fit in-so there is the rub. You can execute a great fill but if misplaced will be distracting noise. There is a reason they are referred to as "tasty fills"-because they have to be in good taste. LOL
 
Thanks for the comments so far folks, really useful!

About crashes, I’m mostly good with this - when I remember! (Sometimes I’ll go into almost auto-pilot and forget - something I’m already working on!)

The type of songs we’re doing are mainly standard rock type stuff, some indie and folk rock. Examples of songs where I play hardly any fills – Dancing in the dark , maneater and fishermans blues (waterboys).

I do have a couple of months until a gig, but it’s just a case of where to focus my attention when practice time is in short supply! Especially when the list of songs we are learning seems to be increasing too!
 
There is some very good advice on this thread.

In most songs the drum part can be boring. But it serves as the very necessary foundation for the more interesting parts of the song. That's our job as drummers.

Spend some time listening to the original recordings of the songs you are going to play. How many drum fills do you hear?
How different would the songs sound without those (I'm assuming) very very few drum fills. There lies the answer to your question.

PS: Playing Fishermans Blues (waterboys) with no fills would sound just fine. Just provide a strong back beat.


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Surprised to hear all the "just play time" opinions. There's a couple months to go until the gig. Are you men or are you mice?

I get what you're saying and if I was playing something that's exactly how I'd approach it but like you I'm further along my drumming journey than the OP who sounds like a beginner :)

It's about being comfortable on stage and not putting any undue pressure on yourself. If you can't play the fills in practice, throw some gig nerves on top of that and you're gonna bring the wrong attention on yourself.

We're just trying to provide words of wisdom for someone who has never played a gig before.

Now where's that cheese!
 
Lack of fills will get you a CALL BACK.

Play the song, not the drums.

I've been gigging for 20 years with all kinds of bands. If you want to get a call back, stay out of the way of the song.
 
Given where you are in terms of the skills and experience, get the song right and ONLY worry about fills if they're of the signature "In The Air Tonight" variety. I once read an interview in which Phil Gould (ex Level 42, he can play) was talking about getting more involved in playing after a lengthy sabbatical and even he was saying that he would tense up ahead of a fill and get the timing wrong after so long out of the saddle.
As for crashes, possibly a contentious point of view but I'd avoid them too unless they're a signal for the band (sloshy hi hats, a double on the snare or a move to the ride are my favoured band signals). If there's one thing that winds me up it's seeing drummers after every 1, 2 or 4 bars hitting the crash. Even far better drummers than me seem to do the "bom bom, biddledy bom CRASH" thing when demoing drumkits. It's a habit I was never fully into and I now forcibly avoid doing it.
 
Did my first ever, in-public, got-paid-to-hit-drums gig last summer, and my #1 goal was to not screw anything up for the rest of the band. So I did what a lot of folks here are suggesting: focus on the song, keep time, get the "signature" stuff right if a song has anything like that in it, and otherwise keep the mistakes down to stuff that most people wouldn't notice. It went great and everyone had a good time. The guitar player noticed that I was playing pretty conservatively, and in the last set encouraged me to go after the fills a bit more (the crowd had thinned out at that point), so I did. But I'm glad that everything else was solid first. This was mostly country/country-dance (two-step) music, with a few classic rock and funk tunes in the mix, so most of the beats were fairly straightforward.
 
The guitar player noticed that I was playing pretty conservatively, and in the last set encouraged me to go after the fills a bit more (the crowd had thinned out at that point), so I did.

Great story and example.
However, I have a very hard time believing this part about the guitar player. In 65 years of playing the drums I've never met a guitar player like this.

I'm editing this post. Having thought about it, and until recently I have never simply kept time with no fills.
So I think I understand why no guitar player has ever said this to me. Sorry, I believe you now.


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