In this free drum lesson I'm taking another song from the Top Best 350 Drum Fills Of All Time and working out how to play the great drum fills it contains. This time, as voted for on my Facebook page here, the song is "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Metallica and drummed by the great Lars Ulrich.

This song features four great and popular drum fills. We will be looking at each of these fun licks in turn. You can hear the original recording of the song on this Youtube video by clicking here.

Later in the video drum lesson I show you how to develop Lar's drum fill ideas into new and exciting drum licks and fill-ins. The classic and very popular "Fa-De-La-Dump" drum fill is also explored in greater detail, so make sure to watch until the end of the video drum lesson for that!

For many other famous and favourite drum fills, check out the Greatest Drum Fills list by clicking here. If you have any of your own suggestions for drum fills that I might have missed then please email me.

** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Free Video Drum Lesson

View the video on YouTube HERE - Learn How To Play Drums For Whom The Bell Tolls Video Drum Lesson (Metallica & Lars Ulrich)

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Great Drum Fill (1:25 Album Version)

The first drum fill above occurs at 1:25 after a bar of standard quarter note rock.

All of the drum fill breaks that Lars plays in this song have an element of "Swing" to them. They all involve triplets and "swung" eighth notes in some way.

Lars plays a classic rock style drum fill, played by many great drummers before such as Bonham, Gadd, Grohl and many many more. It involves four notes played smoothly, one after each other and moving around the drums, starting on the snare, then the high tom then the floor tom, before ending with the bass drum. This sixteenth note triplet lick starts on the downbeat of beats 1 and 3 and ends, with the bass drum, on the '+'s.

A simple snare and crash is played in unison on beats 2 and 4.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Great Drum Fill (2:14 Album Version)

This next drum fill demonstrates how Lars plays in a kind of swing style for each drum break. This great drum fills beauty lies in it's simplicity and the fact that it moves into swung triplets after the chug-chug of the straight verse. It's a cool effect.

The fill starts with a single snare drum on beat 1 followed by another on beat 2. This second snare drum on beat 2 is proceeded by a quick drag with the left hand. You can use any hand you like for this. The bass drum then plays the swung triplet notes before a snare and crash on beat 4.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Great Drum Fill (3:27 Album Version)

The drum fill that occurs at 3:27 into the song is very similar to the first drum fill at 1:25, except that the classic four note triplet pattern is just played between the floor tom and high tom. You can use the medium tom instead of the high tom to create a more darker and deeper sound if you like.

Each of the triplet patterns starts on the '+' of it's beat compared to the downbeat of the beat in the first example from above. Lars ends the licks with some more swung triplet bass drum before another snare and crash unison on beat 4.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Great Drum Fill (3:43 Album Version)

The final drum fill we are going to look at in the free drum lesson occurs at 3:43.

Here, Lars takes the same idea from the fill that occurs at 3:27 and just extends it to the end of the bar. The bar ends with just a single bass drum on beat 4 and each triplet lick starts on the '+' of it's beat.

For many more great, famous and popular drum fills please visit the "Best & Greatest Drum Fills" list.

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One of the most iconic drum fill or drum solo sections found in the Top 350 Great Drum Fills list is the drum solo in the song "Aja" by Steely Dan and drummed by Steve Gadd. This amazing little piece of drumming history has inspired and excited drummers for decades, myself included!

The drum solo contains so many little cool licks and tricks that I didn't know where to begin but I have managed to extract what I think are two of the coolest sections. This free drum lesson is going to take a look at these two great drum licks and where else you can take them.

For more Great & Famous Drum Fills you can view the Top Best Drum Fill List here. Let's now take a look at the first cool drum section below...

"Aja" - Great Drum Fill/Solo (4:54 Album Version)

This first little lick occurs at roughly 4:54 into the song. In it, Gadd plays a kind of classic rock lick that I like to call the "Fa-Da-Le-Dump" based on what it sounds like. It's a lick that many great rock drummers use all the time, such as John Bonham. It consists of four notes played evenly as a triplet; snare, high tom, floor tom and bass drum. It's a classic!

What Steve Gadd does though is slightly different. He turns the lick into a new rhythm.

Firstly, Gadd starts the bar with a single bass drum and then continues to play a three note rhythm through the rest of the bar. This three note rhythm actually consists of four played notes but the first two notes (snare drum and high tom) are played as thirty second notes, taking up the space of just one sixteenth note. So the four notes, consisting of snare, high tom, floor tom and bass drum actually only take up the space of three sixteenth notes.

This three sixteenth note rhythm then moves across the bar before ending with a single crash and bass drum strike on the '+' of beat 4. This crash is where the rest of the band are playing the repeating Vamp. Gadd then goes on to throw out more effortlessly easy licks and beats.

Next, lets take a look at my favourite section in the whole drum solo...

"Aja" - Great Drum Fill/Solo (5:19 Album Version)

Gadd plays a six note idea that has so many adaptions that this lick is worth learning purely for it's possible uses elsewhere, as explained below.

The six note pattern starts with a right hand accent followed by two left hand ghost notes (quiet notes). The last three notes move round the drums in the same way as the "Fa-De-La-Dump" lick explained above.

To continue the lick and make it flow from beat to beat, Gadd removes the right hand accent found on beat 1 and replaces it with the bass drum. The lick can then repeat itself with two left hand ghost notes being played after the bass drum.

This little bar of drumming contains a six note lick that can be started with the right hand or the bass drum then. A really cool and adaptable lick if you experiment with it (see later on below).

The second bar then consists of Bonham style triplets played left handed. Each beat of the bar starts with the bass drum, in the same way as bar 1, followed by the left and right hand down the toms. In this way, Gadd has two bars of licks that can lead with the bass drum foot and so can be joined together as shown now...

"Aja" - Taking The Drum Fills Further (Suggestion 1)

OK, so for this first idea, I've taken the six note lick from the first bar and played in twice for beats 1 and 2. The lick in beat 2 has to start with the bass drum and so does not start with a right hand accent.

The bar then ends with four sets of the left hand triplets. See how easily these two ideas can be added together?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Both licks lead with the bass drum meaning that they can be joined together really easily.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Both the six note lick and the three note lick both end with exactly the same notes, i.e. left hand high tom, right hand floor tom and bass drum. Both the six note and three note ideas sound great together because they share this same melodic ending.

"Aja" - Taking The Drum Fills Further (Suggestion 2)

So this next idea is a lot of fun to play and one of my favourites. The bar consists of a group of six added to a group of three. This means that in total, these two groups last for a beat and a half of the bar. Moving across the beats of the bar in a very satisfactory manner.

This is just the beginning of where you can take these ideas. You will find that with a little experimentation, other ideas with suddenly pop out as they have with me.

Have fun and please email me if you have any great suggestions of your own!

You can also check out other great drum fills from famous songs here.

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This is another free drum lesson inspired by the Greatest & Best Drum Fills Top 350 List. In this series of drum lessons I plan to take the most popular drum fills from the list and present them as little nuggets of drumming gold.

You can take a look at the current list of over 350 Popular & Favourite Drum Fills by clicking here.

This drum lesson is going to look at a really popular and great drum fill from the song "Blinded By Chains" by Avenged Sevenfold. The drummer is the now sadly missed Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan.

The Rev's drumming was particularly exciting to a lot of drummers and was heavily influenced by another great drummer on the list, Mike Portnoy. You can really hear Portnoy's style in the The Rev's drumming.

Here is the drum fill/break that occurs at 2:52 into the song...

"Blinded By Chains" - Great Drum Fill (2:52 Album Version)

As in most metal/rock music, the drummer tends to be pretty fluent and handy with the double bass drum. The Rev was no exception as he demonstrates in this blazing example of foot work!

The first bar notated above is the triplet based figures that the Rev and the rest of the band play together. The second bar however is where the rest of the band drops out just leaving the Rev to pound our ears with his bass.

The second bar starts with a single beats worth of single stroke sixteenth note triplets on the snare drum. The roll takes us up to beat 2 where, just after, the feet engage in a four note pattern commonly known as a "Herta". A Herta consists of two fast notes followed by two slower notes, in this case, two thirty second note triplets followed by two sixteenth note triplets.

The last group of three sixteenth note triplets are played normally, without the Herta thrown in, and the bar then ends on beat 4 with two snare drum strokes on beat 4 itself and the '+' of beat 4. A thirty second note flurry is played on the 'e' of beat 4 in between each snare drum. Simple...*ahem*

More great drum fills and famous drum licks from this list to come very soon!

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When I first heard the song Sunburn, I immediately became life long fans of the band Muse. Not only was this song the perfect mix of rock with piano but Dominic Howard's drum parts were suburb! The drum beat that Dom plays on Sunburn is simply one of my favourite beats of all time!

In this free video drum lesson I'm going to show you how to play the verse drum beat but I'm also going to break it down and show you a simplified version also. This will allow new drummers and beginners to have a go as well hopefully.

As always, please email me if you have any questions or you can contact me on the Drums The Word Facebook Page.

Have fun!

** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **

"Sunburn" - Free Video Drum Lesson

View the video on YouTube HERE - Learn How To Play Drums Sunburn Video Drum Lesson (Muse & Dominic Howard)

"Sunburn" - Verse Drum Beat

Here is the actual verse drum beat that Dom plays, starting at 0:07 into the song.

Notice that there are no bass drums played on beat 1 of either bar. Some drummers might find that quite tricky so look out for this.

Also notice the ghost notes written in brackets between the hi-hats. Some of them are doubled up in the second bar. These doubled ghost notes are played LL and start exactly in between the hi-hats.

There's also a buzz stroke played on the + of beat 4 in bar 1. This is played by squeezing the stick at the end and, with some pressure, pushing down into the snare with the left hand.

"Sunburn" - Simplified Verse Drum Beat

For the simplified version above I've taken out all of the ghost notes, the doubles and the buzz stroke. If you are finding the lack of bass drum on beat 1 still too difficult then feel free to add in an extra bass drum if required. This will still work.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions and I hope you all have a happy holiday!

Rob

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Only Travis Barker could come up with such a cool and unique drum part as that heard on the intro to the song Feeling This by Blink 182. It's almost a drum solo in it's complexity and the way that each bar is completely different to the last.

This free video drum lesson is going to show you how to play this 8 bar intro as well as some simplified versions for those that are finding Travis Barker's actual drum parts a little tricky.

As always, please email me if you have any questions or you can contact me on the Drums The Word Facebook Page.

Have fun!

** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **

"Feeling This" - Free Video Drum Lesson

View the video on YouTube HERE - Learn How To Play Drums Feeling This Video Drum Lesson (Blink 182 & Travis Barker)

"Feeling This" - Actual Intro Drum Beat

This shows all four bars of the intro the way that Travis plays it. The intro is actually 8 bars long so these four bars are simply played twice.

The first bar involves a rather quirky drum groove moving across the bar while bar 2 involves some triplets played between the hi-hat, snare drum and bass drum. The snare drum notes written in brackets are played quietly.

Travis plays some unison notes in bar 3 between the snare drum and hi-hat. The accent notes (loud notes) are played on beat 1, the + of beat 2 and beat 4.

Finally, for bar 4, Travis Barker plays some fast single foot doubles on the bass drum. A double bass drum pedal could be used instead if you find that easier.

Lets now take a look at a simplified version of this intro...

"Feeling This" - Simplified Intro Drum Beat

This is my suggestion for a simpler way of playing the Intro drum beat for Feeling This. The triplets have been removed from bar 2 and bar 3 now just involves the snare drum and no hi-hat.

Bar 4 only has single eighth notes played on the bass drum instead of double sixteenths.

Of course, feel free to mix and match bars from the simplified and actual version depending on your own level of ability. Email me if you have any questions at all. Have fun!

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