Product Description

Filling in the Grooves: The Ultimate Guide to Drum Fills is the most complete and effective guide to building your drum fill arsenal in print. The 168-page book has been designed to assist you in developing a real-world vocabulary of drum fills as played by top professional drummers in every style.

Author Jim Toscano presents a well-organized and complete approach to sounding like the pros when you play fills. The fills are grouped into conceptual approaches covering different types and levels of fills, including:

• Odd groupings
• Filling over the barline
• Double bass fills
• Fills to start songs
• Rudimental fills
• Odd time fills
• “Less is more”-type fills
• Sextuplet and triplet fills
• Layered fills
• Groupings between hands and feet
• Stylistic approaches like blues, country and reggae
• Big ending

Toscano also transcribes and discusses legendary fills from:

• Billy Cobham
• Phil Collins
• Stewart Copeland
• Liberty DeVitto
• Steve Gadd
• Gavin Harrison
• Neil Peart
• Simon Phillips
• Jeff Porcaro
• Steve Smith
• Ringo Starr
• Todd Sucherman
• Tony Williams

Also included are 9 play-along tracks and video demonstrations of nearly every example in the book (280 minutes of video). From beginner to pro-level players, all drummers will find exciting and musical new concepts in these pages!

Here’s what some well-known drummers have to say about the book:

“Jim has created a great book here!  It truly is the ultimate guide to drum fills. Jim very clearly lays out his own great fill ideas, as well as using example fills from the world’s most famous drummers. Some highlights that really got me excited are the Go Figure section (fills that set up full band hits) as well as Famous Drummers Entrance Fills. The Play Along sections are great for students to apply all the fill ideas they practiced from the book in a “real world” scenario. Great job Jim!!”

– John Favicchia

“I’ve been waiting for a book like this for a long time. This amazingly-well organized book fills a gap that has needed more attention. This is complete, fun and captivating! I can use this book in conjunction with all the other drum books. Jim made sure to add all the names of the drummers that are famous for the type of fills we are learning in each section. Thumbs up, Jim! I recommend this book to all the serious drum teachers worldwide.”  

– Stephane Chamberland

“For drummers, fills are like the icing on a cake. They are usually tasty and sweet and it’s not uncommon to prefer them to the foundation, or cake, underneath. That fascination can sometimes lead to too much of a good thing, however. A drum fill, ideally, is a musical device that gives direction to a musical piece by either setting up a figure played by the band or telegraphing the energy level of the next section of the form of the song being played. Over time, it has also transpired that a short drum break of, usually a bar or two, has nested in the descriptor of a “drum fill” as well. Jim’s new guide, Filling in the Grooves, isn’t just a book. It is a multi-media learning tool on the highest-level! He has taken time and gone to great length to offer solid information that instructs on developing skills for creating fills, reference for common categorical applications of fills in a wide variety of musical styles, and Jim also allows us to indulge in a study of fills that are either already-heralded or definitely worth knowing by many of everyone’s favorite drummers!”

– David Stanoch