We’ve got a good little fill unit going here lately— usually these might be taught with a single instruction, “groove first measure / RH lead second measure”, and that’s mostly enough, but, reading from Syncopation, some phrases make that connection a little awkward. It takes a little bit of thought to make them connect naturally, which we will do here.
Practice any two measures from the book Syncopation, mostly pp. 34 and 38, and similar pages. Play one measure of half time feel funk groove, one measure RH lead fill on the tom toms— RH plays melody rhythm on the toms, LH fills in spaces between notes on snare drum.
Notice what happens in each of the special cases at the bottom of the page— sometimes we’re starting the RH lead early, or just adding a left at the end of the first measure to move more naturally into the RH lead. On 5 and 7 we’re ending the fill with an anticipation, on the & of 4, with the cymbal ringing through beat 1 of the repeat.
Practice along with a loop, make it sound good.
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Thanks for posting – it’s nice to have this written out for reference. I’m having fun playing these fills and letting the “mistakes” come through as musical ideas