There are three things you can do to drastically improve your fills.
1. Make your fill a reorchestration or variation on the groove of the song. In other words, take the groove you’re playing, play it on another part of the kit, and your fill will make sense to anyone who hears it. Or if the fIll leads to another section (which it should, but I’ll talk about that in another post) orchestrate the next groove into your fill.
2.Play your fill at the exact same dynamic marking as your groove, unless the song has a crescendo or decrescendo, or you’re moving into another dynamic marking. If you play your fill strikingly louder than the groove, and then go back to your original volume, it sounds out of place.
3. Incorporate your cymbals. If you’re playing the cymbals as part of your groove, and then you completely stop playing them to play a fill, it takes away from the momentum of the groove. Sometimes you can play fills that way, but most of the time if you incorporate the cymbals, it will keep the groove strong.
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