Drum Tutorial - Swing - Basic Fills and "Kicks" - Step 1 - Simple Fill Into Beat 1

One of the most important things a drummer can do is to help accent the beginnings and ends of phrases with fills. In this video, we'll practice playing a simple fill every 2 measures. Most musical phrases happen every 4 or 8 measures, and you won't want to use fills this often, but we shorten the phrases for the purpose of practice. For band directors who aren't drummers, it can be difficult to start students in jazz band if they don't have drum set experience. I'm not a drummer or percussionist by trade, but I am a band director who has found some success teaching drummers in jazz band, and these are some of the ideas I start with my beginning jazz students. These videos aren't meant to teach pedagogy or technique, but rather give students something to play and practice right away that is applicable to the music they will be playing in school jazz band programs, and to give them some patterns to play as a foundation. Everything is played with a metronome, and the videos are made for students to practice along with my playing. Again, I'm not a drummer, and my playing isn't perfect, but hopefully students will play along, take what they've learned, move forward with the ideas, and start developing their own style!