Sound Check Drum Fills the Cheetah
posted by on September 7 at 12:11 PM
Drum fills in certain songs make the song. When the beat is tripped up in a certain way, it sticks in your head. The power and punctuation of the drum fill is a storied and important facet in the world of music.
Technically, the type of fill I’m talking about here is similar to the “double-stroke roll.” It’s played with hits alternating between the left and right hands.
When a drummer runs his sticks down the toms, volcanoes are unleashed. It is a primal, tribal connection to the listener and crowd. Think back to the time of cavemen. They communicated with drum skins, similar to today’s tom drums. Evolve out from that and drum fills are used to announce war. Marches are accompanied. Battles are directed.
When Neil Peart slays through his endless line of drums on “Spirit of Radio”, he does more than emit testosterone, mathematics, and agility - he calls the audience to war, and there is a victory feast of rhythmical deciphering.
Hell yeah.
What are your favorite drum fills? What drum fills or rolls make you and the song scream?
John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” has one such snare fill. It’s not so much of the testosterone variety as it is catchy. It’s a snare shuffle and hesitation. Lennon is above it, screaming, “Why in the world are we here / Surely not to live in pain and fear.” Can you hear it? Then Lennon goes, “Yeah we all shine on / Like the moon and the stars and sun.” He’s straightforward on the meter of the piano, but that snare fill turns it upside down and brings it back around. It sticks in my head forever.
Trans Am’s “Tesco v. Sainsburys”, Track 9 off of Sex Change, has a drum fill for the ages as well. Actually, the song is basically one sustained fill. Gyroscopes are on fire. Drummer, Sebastian Thompson, weaves an anvil. The tom hits are doubled by the bass and keyboards flair off. The pattern is locked and crushes. Inside the piston is a scene – a cheetah moves on a kill doing 60 mph. The rudder tail cat thinks meat and leaps.
If there was war, it would be won. Sebastian makes us safe.
Drum rolls are the most important thing that have happened in the history of music.
It's like the dunk to basketball.
The post-intro roll into verse 1 of XTC's "That Wave." Dave Mattacks kills it with a riveted-china crash on the downbeat. So nice...
Yes, drum rolls KICK ASS. Most music would suck without them.
Brent Amaker
The Terri Bozzio fills on Missing Person' Spring Session M + the "Mental Hopscotch" single has done it for me for over 20 years.
Are we talking about drum rolls, or fills? Sorry, just trying to get it straight. They both rule.
I saw Peart in NYC about 3 years ago. His kit rotated. I think there was a cheetah in there too.
I think we are talking about fills. But for me, fills and rolls I think are the same thing.
The fill vs. the roll is a good question. I am such a nerd, what can I say? I went googling.
From Dave Bedrock's American Drum School:
"CLASSIC" Rock's CLASSIC DRUM FILL
What is a drum fill? Simply put, it is a short rhythmic idea played by the drummer to fill a space at the end of a vocal or instrumental phrase. The most basic drum fill is derived from a single stroke roll played around the whole drum set (snare, small tom, medium tom, floor tom). It is simply sixteenth notes played four on each drum. Practice these slow at first, thinking about your hand and stick position when moving from drum to drum."
There are some pulse-accelerating rolls in the Sweet's "The Ballroom Blitz," which was about the greatest song to hear when you're 12-13.
Similarly to "Instant Karma", there is an awesome fill in Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me". The song swings, but the fill in the middle is a straight-sixteenth run from the snare down the toms. Genius. Sadly, every karaoke version that I have heard has a swinging triplet fill in place of the aforementioned awesome. Bogus.
The Greatest Drumroll? "In the Air Tonight" -- Phil Collins. Starts out quiet, Crockett and Tubbs, looking grim, on their way to a gun battle with some Columbians. Then the drummer kicks it and all hell breaks loose.
dave grohl in that one Queens of the stone age song that the radio liked for a while. allow me to demonstrate:
bblapatuh-blupputah-blapatuh-blupputuh!
or whenever bonham plays over the bar line.
drumrolls sound like rain coming down on a roof, done on a snare drum usually. fills, more specifically, roundhouse fills-like neil pearts-are when a drummer plays all his toms/drums in order, really fast!
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