ADVANCED FILL PATTERNS: Syncopation Lesson 14 - Groofills

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Let’s keep exploring advanced voicings for Syncopation Sets.  Lesson 14 is probably the most useful of the four Syncopation Sets: 16th note triplets and 16th notes being the most common subdivision in fills.  

Our voicing this time is a Groofill (Groove + Fill) with some tricky kick substitutions:

Our 16th note pattern is RLRK LKRL - voiced for beats 1&3/2&4

Our triplet pattern is RLRRKK RLKKRL - also voiced for beats 1&3/2&4

The key to making patterns like this come to life is breaking up the voices, maintaining a snare on the backbeat and DYNAMICS.  It doesn’t matter if you’re playing at 38bpm or 200bpm, if you don’t have dynamics then your feel will be flat and lifeless.  Groofills are great for working on dynamics and phrasing, you have to get your ghost notes down and back beats up to keep the Groove part going, but you need to dig in to your toms to get the weight of a Fill.  Awesome for rock and pop, but with a little creativity you can work Groofills into almost any style of music.

Go slow, think ahead, run the entire lesson if you’ve got the time or just a handful for a nice workout.

Happy Drums to You!

The rest of the advanced Syncopation Sets as well as lots more material can be found in “Drumset Patterns, Melodies and Rudiments” available in the store