HOW TO PLAY 🥁 · DRUM FILLS

The drum fills in My Own Summer - Deftones

2 fills to learn, played 3 times across 66 bars. Two fills that share a rhythm and differ only in how they are spread round the toms are one fill here, learned once and orchestrated twice.

TEMPO
72 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
66
LENGTH
3:40
DIFFICULTY
51/100

Bar 14, and 1 more time

LOOP · 72 BPM
PLAYED AT BARS 14 AND 51 · LANDS ON BAR 15

On crash, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick. 46 out of 100 -- a step up -- and what decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet. In the song it lands on bar 15. The exercise loops the figure on its own first, and the one after it puts it back: one bar of rest to count yourself in, the figure, then the landing with the time still running. Getting out of a fill is the half most people never practise.

Bar 45

LOOP · 72 BPM
PLAYED AT BAR 45 · LANDS ON BAR 46

On crash, hi-hat, snare and kick. 57 out of 100 -- a step up -- and what decides that is the independence between the hands and the feet. In the song it lands on bar 46. The exercise loops the figure on its own first, and the one after it puts it back: one bar of rest to count yourself in, the figure, then the landing with the time still running. Getting out of a fill is the half most people never practise.

How a fill is practised

A fill is rhythm before it is orchestration. The room plays the whole figure on the snare first, puts the feet under it second, and moves it round the toms last -- looped on its own, round and round, until the hands know it. Then it puts the fill back where it lives: a bar of rest to count in, the figure, and the downbeat it lands on, because landing square is the other half of the job.

PRACTISE THESE FILLS →

Questions

How many drum fills are in My Own Summer - Deftones?

2 distinct fills, played 3 times: bars 14, 45 and 51.

What is the hardest fill in My Own Summer - Deftones?

The one at bar 45, at 57 out of 100. 66 bars, 3:40, at 72 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, mid tom and kick and nothing else.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 66 BARS ANALYSED