5/4 Drum Beats & Drum Fills
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Learn How To Play 5/4 Drum Beats & Drum Fills!
In past lessons, we've dealt with 3/4 beats and fills and gotten you comfortable with breaking away from 4/4 time. Now we are going to get into 5/4 beats and fills. Basically, all you are doing is adding a beat to 4/4.
When counting, the most common thing to do is to count to 5. Sometimes, if the song seems to fit better with it, I'll break the count into groups of two and three. For example, I'll count: one two, one two three or one two three, one two. As you play through the examples you may see some that seem to fit in with this style of counting. There really is now right or wrong way as long as the counts are evenly spaced and total five, so do what works best for you in a given situation.
Exercises 1 and 2 use only quarter notes, to get you used to the count.
In Exercises 3 to 5, some eighth notes are thrown in. Count them the same way you would any eighth notes.
Exercise 6 adds to the complexity with some sixteenth note fills.
Exercises 7 and 8 are two fills in 5/4 time and feature a lead in drum beat.
Learn how to play sixteenth note triplet fills in the next drum lesson.
