Here’s another practice loop, with a page of things to play with it. What I’ve done here is sample two measures from Herbie Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island, and write out a page of fills to fit the figure:
Use the stickings I’ve given, or don’t. Move snare drum line around the tom toms— I neglected to include a key, but by now you know that the top line is a cymbal, the middle line the snare drum, and the bottom line the bass drum. The triplet fills are pretty fast at this tempo, so you might want to take it down a bit, with a metronome instead of the loop.
Audio— the original track, and a practice loop— after the break:
I’m not real happy with this loop, honestly— the best of these are nice to listen to, and this one isn’t. But it does serve its purpose. Just play along with it as a glorified(?) metronome, and leave it at that.
Here’s the original track, from Herbie Hancock’s Empyrean Isles. You’ll notice that Tony Williams doesn’t do the kind of fills on the page— just because we’re learning them doesn’t mean you need to play them on this tune. Certainly this figure will turn up in other instances where you will want to fill it up more.