How To Play In 6/8 ⏱️ Focus on learning these fills

@Ash Soan

Ash Soan slips into the half-time shuffle from his Windmill Studio kit, that Purdie/Porcaro pocket every drummer respects and few really sit inside. It's a short reel but a clinic in feel, with the ghost notes breathing under a relaxed Thursday-morning groove. Worth the rewind for the left hand alone.

@Matt Greiner

Matt Greiner of August Burns Red breaks down the final 40 seconds of "Legions," walking through the closer's drum parts and how the writing pushed him into new territory. The clip is worth it for the double bass cam alone, complete with Dustin Davidson's squat headbang in the background. Greiner credits the band dynamic for forcing him faster and more creative than he'd go on his own.

Luke Holland walks David Frangioni through his Falling in Reverse touring rig backstage at the iTHINK Financial Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, the August 2025 stop captured for Modern Drummer's tour kit rundown series. In 51 seconds you get the working blueprint behind one of metalcore's more theatrical live shows: the shells, cymbal layout, and triggering setup Holland leans on to keep up with the band's stop-on-a-dime arrangements and pyro cues.

It is a quick look rather than a deep spec sheet, but that is the appeal of the format. If you have ever wondered how a modern arena metalcore kit is actually laid out for nightly punishment, Frangioni gets Holland to point at the pieces that matter most.

Steve Gadd's fingerprints are all over the Zildjian K Custom Session Ride, a 20-inch studio-built workhorse that pairs a long, low-pitched sustain with clean stick articulation and a bright, cutting bell. The dark, complex wash stays controllable under heavy playing, and the cymbal even doubles as a dry, short crash when you lean into the edge. Currently $399.95 on Amazon, marked down from $469.95.

Listen to it here.

Jack Medaglia, a rock drummer with no prior exposure to the track, gets handed a drumless cut of Kirk Franklin's "Love Theory" and has to build a part from scratch. No rehearsal, no reference listen, no coaching from the Drumble crew. Just headphones, instincts, and a song built on a feel most rock players rarely sit inside.

The fun of this 13-minute episode is watching the negotiation happen in real time: where his rock vocabulary fights the pocket, where it bends to fit, and which gospel cues he picks up by ear. The payoff comes at the end, when his take gets stacked against the original so you can hear exactly what he caught, what he missed, and what he reinvented.

@Jeff Randall

Jeff Randall's new clip tackles 6/8, and the payoff is simple: by the end of two minutes you should stop counting six even sixteenths and start feeling the time the way it actually moves on the kit.

The shortcut is to hear 6/8 as two big pulses, not six little ones. Count "ONE two three, TWO two three" and let your foot land on those two downbeats. Every other note inside the bar is decoration. Start at 60 bpm on the dotted quarter, ride the cymbal in straight eighths, kick on 1, snare on 4, and let it breathe. Once that locks in, push the cymbal into a shuffle feel by accenting beats 1 and 4 a touch harder. The most common mistake is rushing the "and" of each group because you're still thinking in 4/4; if your hi-hat starts sounding like a gallop, slow down and tap the two main pulses with your heel until the body relearns the pocket. Try it against Led Zeppelin's "We're Gonna Groove" intro feel, or any slow blues in 12/8, which is just 6/8 doubled.

The takeaway: count in two, not six, and 6/8 stops being an odd time and starts being a groove.

Drum Beats Online cuts a 649-fill marathon down to 8.5 keepers, ranging from Meshuggah-style hertas and a six-stroke roll to a paradiddle workout and a closer he dubs the Ultimate Fill. The breakdown is chaptered fill by fill, with free tempo-adjustable notation linked in the description so you can drill each one at your own pace. Forget the rest and steal the eight your tunes actually need.