A Super Easy Way to Use Rudiments in Fills

brentcn

Platinum Member
Much of what I've seen on using rudiments in fills, I've never found myself playing -- the stickings are weird, the rhythms are lame, and the notation is awful, and mostly, the end result is boring and unimaginative. So, I wanted to share this little lesson on using rudiments in fills. Obviously this is a pretty broad topic, but these are a couple of simple, but practical examples, in a basic rock setting.

The overall idea is simple. First, take a 2-beat fill -- 8 16th notes long -- and add some accents to it. Then, on the non-accented notes, play double strokes instead of singles. Usually, the result can be described in terms of rudiments: a 6 stroke roll, then a Lesson 25. But it's not necessary to "think" in terms of rudiments, all you have to do is keep track of the accents, and play doubles on everything else.

Enjoy!
Using%20Rudiments%20in%20Simple%20Fills.jpg


Another possibility would be to keep the non-accented notes on the snare, but voice the accented notes onto different sound sources. For example, you might move the left hand accents to the rack tom, hi-hat, or crash, and the right hand accents to the floor tom, ride, or crash.

Still another idea is to substitute flams for the single, accented notes, so that you wind up playing combinations of flam accents, pataflaflas, flamacues, etc.
 
These topics on rudiments keep popping up and it's all about having a GOOD teacher or being disciplined enough to get proficient with the rudiments and explore how to use them.

When you say boring unimaginative fills with lame rythems, you're doing it wrong..

Think of EVERY drum solo ever played by any of the great drummers. That is them being creative with rudiments they have practiced over an over. Another argument I recently saw was that "rudiments are mostly just groupings of singles and doubles so that is what I practice". If you want to get really good at singles and doubles practice those. If you want to get good at para diddles practice those. Inverted, you need to work on those. If it's all just singles and doubles, tell me why when you set a click your max BPM on each rudiment will be vastly different and some of them will be tight and some sloppy. It's just singles and doubles after all right ;).

You need to get the muscle memory for the patterns. Singles and doubles don't engage your brain like patterns. Also every micro incremental of speed you have to sink more time into it. Just because you can play inverted paradiddles at 150 for 200 hours doesn't mean you can play at 180 etc.


Once you can play the rudiments there are also many things to do with them before even going to a kit. First is displacing the accent, adding multiple accents. Then we can actualy displace the entire rudiment starting on the and of 1, the 3 of one, the e of 2 and so on. Boom, that resets the learning clock for most and can take a long time. Now we can displace the rudiment with the different accents.

Once that is done, hey, playing the SAME rudiment as triplets, 16th note triplets, 32nd notes. Changing between subdivisions is REALLY important to keep from sounding stale and repetitive. Paradiddles make great triplets when you keep the accents on Rlr rLr llR lrr Lrl lRl rrL rll. Counting that as singles and doubles would suck. Especially when you try all the things from the previous paragraph. Start on the and of one, now you can go over the bar line, or change up the last half to end in the correct spot. Oh, we can also move the accents in THIS patter too.

I'm only talking about a single sticking for all of that. You can do that for every rudiment, and every sticking. Oh we have this kick drum we are not incorporating. We can add that too to everything we just talked about.

I will admit, for the first 15 years of playing I avoided rudiments. I thought they were pointless thinking "I don't play fills on a snare drum in patterns like that" along with "I can play singles much faster" After putting in some time it started to make sense, onto "Man I wish I started doing this years ago" My fills are better, my sols are better, my over all playing and groove is way better. When working on rudiments focusing on keeping those ghost notes whisper quiet REALLY helps your playing. and once again, it's the patterns that show up in the grooves too.

I think I'll make another video soon of my practice doing all of this. You can spend a year on just a few patterns and come up with some really tasty fills.

Just my two cents, I do like some of the accent placements on your fills there and those are great for people to get good at not playing the obvious accent on Rlrl Rlrl
 
When you say boring unimaginative fills with lame rythems, you're doing it wrong..

I was referring to what pops up when you search "rudiments on the drums" or "rudiments on the kit", etc, on YouTube and Google. There's lots of very bad stuff going on there.

Just my two cents, I do like some of the accent placements on your fills there and those are great for people to get good at not playing the obvious accent on Rlrl Rlrl

Much appreciated!

Thanks for posting that Brentcn, if you have anymore ideas, would be nice to see them.

Steve B

I mean, the topic is kind of endless. Let me ask, is the above material easy for you? Should I post something more advanced, or in the same ballpark? Is there a particular rudiment you'd be interested in applying?
 
I was referring to what pops up when you search "rudiments on the drums" or "rudiments on the kit", etc, on YouTube and Google. There's lots of very bad stuff going on there.



Much appreciated!



I mean, the topic is kind of endless. Let me ask, is the above material easy for you? Should I post something more advanced, or in the same ballpark? Is there a particular rudiment you'd be interested in applying?

Second thoughts Brent, save them for a while.....Im sort of looking at Paradidle diddles and six stroke rolls at the moment. Yeah your right it does seem like its an endless subject, been looking at the drumeo vids with Pat Petrillo and Thomas Pridgen......gonna be taking it nice and slow.
 
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