This is in development, it’s not necessarily a finished “lesson.” We’ve done a lot making simple rock beats into fill phrases, here we’re doing that with a more complex beat— looking at some possible ways do it, to find the teachable thing. The concept is half baked, but it’s worth working through it even in this state, there are some creative moves to be learned even if the actual results with one thing/pattern aren’t real musical-seeming.
So far we’ve done this strictly with 8th notes as the main value; the crashes are one 8th long, the fills are all based 8ths and 8th equivalent values. Here we’re working with any 16th notes in the bass drum part, incorporating them with the fill, or the accent figure. The beat is from the Roy Burns/Joey Farris funk book, which is really old, but is still solid as a style guide.
My descriptions of the variations are rather obscure, but you can figure out the concept of each thing by looking at it, and then try applying it to some other similar kind of beat. I’ll give a fuller explanation when I’ve worked it out a little more.
The correct pdf link: https://pdxdrummer.com/downloads/lessons_downloads/drumset/pdxdrummer.com_filling-in-funk-beats_01.pdf