Single licks or fills that completely changed your playing

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xFrenzy

xFrenzy

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Has there ever been a single lick or fill that has made a monumental effect to your playing style?
I remember when I was in my 2nd or 3rd year of drumming, I heard the fill in "Back To You" by John Mayer (Room For Squares version) leading into the first chorus.
It wasn't complicated technically by any means, but something about it just clicked with me. I now find myself frequently putting double strokes on the snare into fills for a bit of extra flavor, and I always attribute it to hearing that one fill.
What about anyone else?
 
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There was one song that made me look at drumming very differently than before I heard it- Five Percent for Nothing from the Fragile album by Yes. Changed my life. I'm not kidding.
 
back in 2003 or 2004,i was checking out the jayhawks on austin city limits. their drummer is also a singer/drummer like i am. his feel or his approach to the way he played really hit home with me. it changed my playing style.

and........levon helm. what more can i say. i cant pick out one lick or song,but just levon.


mike
 
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Chameleon by Herbie Hancock
Mario by Franco and OK Jazz
Woman to Woman Joe Cocker
Pocket of a Clown Dwight Yoakem
Stone Cold Richie Blackmore's Rainbow
 
Two fun (and very much unrelated) fills I have enjoyed trying to emulate over the years are:

Ian Paice - During the fade out at the very end of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" is a great lick with heavy accents on 1 & 2, 16ths on 3 and fast triplets on the downbeat of 4. It was an accelerating fill that was played through a phase shifter on the recording. One of the best measures of drumming I had ever heard.

Mel Gaynor - Second one is in Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me", when the drums pick things up after the slow interlude in the middle of the song. Great snare work, some tricky sticking and a powerful left-right crash into 1 of the following measure.

Both of these fills are only one measure long but they blew me away when I first heard them and sent me immediately to my own drums to try and figure out how to do this on my own.

Great discussion thread - there were a lot of amazing drummers that influenced many other players. The more I think about it the more that come to mind. I'm interested to read what the rest of the group has to offer!
 
xFrenzy said:
Has there ever been a single lick or fill that has made a monumental effect to your playing style?
I remember when I was in my 2nd or 3rd year of drumming, I heard the fill in "Back To You" by John Mayer (Room For Squares version) leading into the first chorus.
It wasn't complicated technically by any means, but something about it just clicked with me. I now find myself frequently putting double strokes on the snare into fills for a bit of extra flavor, and I always attribute it to hearing that one fill.
What about anyone else?
Click to expand...

ooh I, thats nice, whats he doing? (in the fill that is)
 
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the entire songs for the deaf by QOTSA. Dave Grohl's use of flams on that album directly influenced my playing
 
After learning "Memphis Will be Laid to Waste" by Norma Jean, I put the little "RL" snare rolls in between measures alot now.
 
animalbeats said:
xFrenzy said:
Has there ever been a single lick or fill that has made a monumental effect to your playing style?
I remember when I was in my 2nd or 3rd year of drumming, I heard the fill in "Back To You" by John Mayer (Room For Squares version) leading into the first chorus.
It wasn't complicated technically by any means, but something about it just clicked with me. I now find myself frequently putting double strokes on the snare into fills for a bit of extra flavor, and I always attribute it to hearing that one fill.
What about anyone else?
Click to expand...

ooh I, thats nice, whats he doing? (in the fill that is)
Click to expand...
I hear it like this.
R LLRR LR L RL
1 +a2e +3 + 4+
T SSSS SS T FF
 
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Bands like Blue Oyster Cult, Queensryche and Saga helped me break out of the rut of standard 16th-note tom-runs and do more creative fills. Saga's "Humble Stance" helped me learn how to "swing" 16th notes on the hihats and to do tom-tom-bass triplets.

 
The way Charlie Watts handled Satisfaction, for some reason, made a big impression on me. Lee Dorsey's Working in a Coal Mine was another and not easy to learn although that lick is a reverse clave beat.
 
69OysterBlue said:
Two fun (and very much unrelated) fills I have enjoyed trying to emulate over the years are:

Ian Paice - During the fade out at the very end of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" is a great lick with heavy accents on 1 & 2, 16ths on 3 and fast triplets on the downbeat of 4. It was an accelerating fill that was played through a phase shifter on the recording. One of the best measures of drumming I had ever heard.

Mel Gaynor - Second one is in Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me", when the drums pick things up after the slow interlude in the middle of the song. Great snare work, some tricky sticking and a powerful left-right crash into 1 of the following measure.

Both of these fills are only one measure long but they blew me away when I first heard them and sent me immediately to my own drums to try and figure out how to do this on my own.

Great discussion thread - there were a lot of amazing drummers that influenced many other players. The more I think about it the more that come to mind. I'm interested to read what the rest of the group has to offer!
Click to expand...

That fill by Mel Gaynor is terrific! That one always stuck with me as well!
 
The Tony Williams lick on the original "Seven Steps to Heaven" where he's chicking the hi hat with his left foot, interspersed with left hand snare drum notes.

It made me realize that you can do as much with your left foot as your right. When I'm soloing nowadays, I always throw in some left foot hi hat s**t. It's cool.

Subsequent research revealed that Roy Haynes was doing this years before, but as we all know, Roy was where Tony came from. Roy was always ahead of everybody.
 
It wasn't a 'single lick' that affected me as much as it was Joe Morello's entire solo on 'Take Five'. That solo swings really hard from start to finish. The way Joe plays with 'call and response' in that solo and the way he masterfully fleshes out the basic rhythmical idea opened my eyes wide to whole other level/world of drumming.

&feature=related

John
 
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I don't know about "completely changed" how I play, but a few that come to mind this evening:

Stones -- Beast of Burden
Petty -- Deliver Me
Joe Henry -- Trampoline
Blue Mountain -- Blue Canoe

Every week there's something that catches my ear. Some stick more than others...
 
Fill - has to be Manu on Julia Fordham's Manhattan Skyline. Not the obvious fill but oh so tasty and musical. Not an easy way to go but very satisfying when it works.

As for licks, I have to say it is an even toss between Tony's Blush da and the good old 6 stroke roll and all the variants therefrom. Loving 9 beat patterns with this right now.
 
Always liked the intro to Steve Miller's 'Take the Money and Run'

A bit of an odd one...'Blue River Liquor Shine' by Max Webster. A funky intro and then some great variations on fills throughout the song.

 
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- The drum solo and all fills from the long version of "Get Ready" by Rare Earth 1969, drummer Peter Rivera.

- Steve Gadd's paradiddle pattern and mozambique.

- Drummer Mickey Curry's double-kick hits with cymbal crashes at the end of a fill on "This Time" by Bryan Adams.

- Ringo's open hats and subtle four-on-the-floor kick.
 
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