204: Broken Fill Patterns

Up until now we have played 16th note fills without any gaps. On the snare that looks like this:

And if we play it around the kit, we get this familiar pattern:

n.b. If you have a 5-piece kit, you can play the four notes on beat 3 on the mid tom, instead of the snare.

In this chapter we will explore broken fill patterns, that is, fills with notes missing.

You will immediately hear that they are more rhythmic and exciting. But that comes at a price, they can be a little trickier for us to play.

Let’s get stuck in and start playing some broken fill patterns >>

Broken Fill Pattern 1: [1e& 2e& 3e& 4e& ]

In this first exercise, we remove the last note of each set of four – the ‘a’ of each beat – giving us our first broken pattern:

Broken Fill Pattern 2: [1 &a2 &a3 &a4 &a]

In this second exercise, we remove the second sixteenth note from each beat (the ‘e’):

Broken Fill Pattern 3: [1e a2e a3e a4e a]

In this third exercise, we will remove the third sixteenth note from each beat (the &):

Broken Fill Pattern 4: [ e&a e&a e&a e&a]

And in this final exercise, we will remove the first sixteenth note from each beat (the number). This can be a little disorientating. In the second pattern below, you will see the hi-hat is played on the first note of the bar to help set the pattern off correctly: