The exercises given in this lesson will be similar to our A B Exercises Using Half Bar Eighth Note Fills where the fill is now built from a mixture of eighth and sixteenth notes. As in the previous lesson, the aim here is to improve your ability to switch from groove to fill and back again without any breaks in timing but this time the difficulty is increased slightly with the more complex rhythms.
The meaning of the term 'half bar fill' was discussed in the lesson linked above, but to quickly recap it just means that the fill is only played over beats three and four and groove is played over beats one and two. This is a very common fill construction idea so it would be very useful to become familiar with it at an early stage in your playing.
As with all of these phrasing and fill application lesson, it is important you play the exercises along to a metronome to ensure your are getting the timing right. The main aim of this lesson is to work on getting rid of any gaps when transitioning from groove to fill and back again so this should be your primary focus. If at any point you find your self struggling with an exercise it may be worth learning the fill separately before attempting to play the full two bar pattern.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all phrases up to a tempo of at least 120bpm.
- Create your own versions of these patterns by varying the orchestration of the fill and the groove.
