7 Rock Drum Fills for Beginners

Learn To Play Drums In 90 Days:

Drum fills. The one brief moment in time where the drummer can improvise and fully express themselves to best serve the song. Today I'm here to give you the perfect start to learning drum fills and getting fluent with the different parts of the drum kit. We'll cover the most popular fills used in rock music to act as the building blocks for future, advanced patterns you start to create.

Let's get started...

Follow along with sheet music:

Follow US:

[titanjde]

I used to play drums in high school, never took lessons, just played by feel. Listening and repeating what I heard. Was given a drumset and learning to play again. This was a very simple and effective way to teach this. Thanks for the explanation.

[mathcoreable]

The sound of that Yamaha kit is AWESOME, specially kick and snare

[daleynotdaily]

That's a 10/10 sounding bass drum. Wow.

[kevinonthedrums]

"Sometimes the best notes, are the ones that aren't played."

-Dave
-Michael Scott

[davidmcaninch]

Before we play fills, we have to say the fill oath:
“I will never play fill just because I want to.”

[realblonx]

I like how he doesn't waste time talking. He just tells you what to do and shows you an example. Period.

[gmoney]

This is good stuff . Perfect for a beginner and a good review for an intermediate player. Thanks for bringing this to us . And thanks for breaking it down and explaining everything. Sheet music really helps too!!

[courtney]

That whole kit including with the cymbals sounds STUNNING!!!

[njdrummer]

I’ve been playing drums for about 6 years. Picked it up at 46. I’ve always been a drummer in my mind if that makes sense. I am in total awe by anyone w chops. Wish I picked it up at 15 or 16. Love the lessons.

[TenThumbsProductions]

When I make hip hop beats I like 1/4 beat fills at the end of the 4th and 12th bars, half at the 8th and full at the 16th. It gives the beat more movement.

[androidgaming]

Awesome! Need more lesson on Rock drum fills like this one ... thnx for the tips... 👍

[michaelwest]

This was so fun! Getting back under a kit for the first time in 30 years and doing these over and over, and variations of, is perfect to not only get moving with the click again but to feel progress and to be able to put 4 bars together. Thanks for keeping it simple for us "beginners". Subscribed!

[rocknrolloutlaw]

9:15...so true.. alot of drummers overplay, without realizing they're repeating themselves...sometimes you just need to groove with a good bassline, or guitar playing and wait for your turn to shine. This guy is on point!!!

[aarongroh]

I've been playing for a few years on and off and this past year I have been putting time In and taking it seriously along with my work out routine. I love lessons like this, back to the basics and I love the bonam triplet 4 bar fill, u can use it with any genre and it's sounds awesome. Even the other couple of simple 16 th note and the 8th note crusendo one. And " U won't get fired for not overplaying or counting 4 quarter note rests " Awesome teaching Dave!!!! Back to the Basics sometimes I get more results practicing basic, hands and feet and subdivisions. singles doubles, and basic single double para didles👍❤️

[boxoffisa]

This channel should be ranked very well. They got all it takes.

[DrummerGrrrl]

Thank you SO much for this video! I have avoided playing with other musicians just because I have been incredibly bad at doing fills. I just never know how to end one and return to the main beat. I am going to study your video a lot!

[billyhiggins]

I am new and have a Steinberg Cubase. As a guitarist with no drums knowledge this content saved me to get an idea with creating drum patterns thank yov🙋🎶💯🙏🙆

[mikecurtis]

I'm beginning to play just for fun. This is _exactly_ what I needed. And the first fill, silence, glad you added that, because it's easy to overlook.

[lestrum]

This is great. I do not find the concept that difficult but your final point about integrating the fill with proper time, is exactly what I struggle with after 6 months of playing. And of course finding proper fills without studying 1000 fills. Great lesson. Organized well.I will study this video as part of my practice routine.

[thirdnail]

I have played guitar since middle school, something about the guitar just looked cool...but after a few years (as well as a few years studying classical guitar, because of Randy Rhodes) I just heard the drums more than anything else (probably because I was listening to Metallica ...and Justice for all album lol) and I loved the way a fill would make me feel ... those fills from Rush that Neal would play moved me more than anything else in a song. I wanted a drum set so bad, so I could learn what it was that was moving me, but at that time was on my own and lived in a small apartment. Next door to me at that complex lived an old hippie type bass player, he loved funk and he said that the bass guitar was what I really wanted to play to get that “THUMP” in my blood and that was what was moving me not the drummer. So I bought a bass, because guitar timing in rock was so closely the same as the timing as the bass, I thought I would learn some funk...my first song on bass that I ever feel in love with was the Sanford and Son theme song. Learned it, loved it but still had that desire to play drums. A good high school friend of mine, who was also a bass player loved Primus so I learned a lot of their songs as well as R.H.C.P. and their timings and style. But again was NEVER satisfied! I went to the piano (keyboard) and learned some of the basic chords, formations, songs and styles of the most popular classical pieces and the popular piano and Key players of today...from Queen, E, L&P, Floyd, to the WIZARD from Dream Theater... but couldn’t scratch that itch... I would just hear the drums... Emerson Lake and Palmers “Lucky Man” oh my! Instead of listening to the keys in Dream Theaters songs I found myself lost because the fills would make me want to stop what I was doing to hear the drums more clearly!
25 years later and my wife bought me an electric kit... HOURS AND HOURS of PURE SCRATCHING pleasure... I was like a dog who had fleas, or a gambling addict who had a roll of scratch-off lottery tickets... that ITCH was being scratched and all I wanted to do was recreate some of those moments when I heard System of a Down’s drummer, or some of those great jazz fills (only using 1 tom snare kick and a couple cymbals) or get that (I guess it could be called a high maybe?) to get that BUZZ like the first time I heard Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida but quickly realized the way I thought they maybe doing it was with a TON OF DRUMS (too many 80’s videos I guess?)
So now I’m here, I want to UNDERSTAND what it is that makes my heart weak when I hear those perfectly placed fills.