Fill (music)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
, a fill is a short musical passage,
riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accompani ...
, or rhythmic sound which helps to sustain the listener's attention during a break between the
phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
s of a
melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
. "The terms riff and fill are sometimes used interchangeably by musicians, but
hile Hile ( ne, हिले) is a hill town located in the Eastern Part of Nepal, 13 km north of the regional center of Dhankuta Bazar. At an elevation of 1948 meters, it is the main route to other hilly districts like Bhojpur and Sankhuwasab ...
the term riff usually refers to an exact musical phrase repeated throughout a song", a fill is an improvised phrase played during a section where nothing else is happening in the music. While riffs are repeated, fills tend to be varied over the course of a song. For example, a drummer may fill in the end of one phrase with a sixteenth note hi-hat pattern, and then fill in the end of the next phrase with a snare drum figure. In drumming, a fill is defined as a "short break in the
groove Groove or Grooves may refer to: Music * Groove (music) * Groove (drumming) * The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s * The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station * Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station ...
—a lick that 'fills in the gaps' of the music and/or signals the end of a phrase. It's akin to a mini-
solo Solo or SOLO may refer to: Arts and entertainment Comics * ''Solo'' (DC Comics), a DC comics series * Solo, a 1996 mini-series from Dark Horse Comics Characters * Han Solo, a ''Star Wars'' character * Jacen Solo, a Jedi in the non-canonical ''S ...
." A fill may be played by
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
or pop instruments such as the
electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...
lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...
, bass, organ, drums or by other instruments such as strings or
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
. In
blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
or swing-style scat singing, a fill may even be sung. In a hip-hop group, a fill may consist of rhythmic
turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
scratching Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two record ...
performed by a DJ. "Fills can vary as to style, length, and dynamics...
hough Hough may refer to: * Hamstringing, or severing the Achilles tendon of an animal * the leg or shin of an animal (in the Scots language), from which the dish potted hough is made * Hough (surname) Communities United Kingdom * Hough, Alderley E ...
most fills are simple in structure and short in duration"Morton, James (1990). ''You Can Teach Yourself Drums'', p.57. Mel Bay. . Each type of popular music such as funk, country, and metal has characteristic fill passages, such as short
scalar Scalar may refer to: *Scalar (mathematics), an element of a field, which is used to define a vector space, usually the field of real numbers * Scalar (physics), a physical quantity that can be described by a single element of a number field such ...
licks, runs, or riffs. Musicians are expected to be able to select and perform stylistically appropriate fills from a collection of stock fills and phrases. "Although it is a small break in the pattern, the
tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...
is not changed at all, and in most instances the time-keeping pattern is resumed immediately after the fill...An important point to remember is that the flow of the music should not be sacrificed to the technicality of the fill." Chordal fills on guitar or keyboard instruments are "groups of single notes played within the context of a specific chord" to "produc a countermelody." A guitarist playing chordal fills will strum the chord for several strums and then interpolate several passing notes that lead to the next chord.


Tradition and improvisation

In some styles, such as
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
or
jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
, musicians have more freedom to improvise fill passages each time a piece or song is performed. In other styles, such as bluegrass, performers are more likely to use standard "walkup" or "
walkdown In country music, walkdown is a bassline which connects two root position chords whose roots are a third apart, often featuring an inverted chord to go between the root notes of the first two chords. See: slash chord. A walkup would be the conv ...
" scalar passages as fills in every song. Some groups use previously composed fills as part of the identity of a song.
The Eagles The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. With five number-one singles and six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s ...
, for example, play the same fills each time they perform a song.


Comparison with similar techniques

Fills are distinguished from solo
breaks Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...
, which are short, often unaccompanied solo passages interpolated between sections of a song. Whereas fills are relatively unobtrusive, solo breaks such as bass runs are usually composed to draw attention to the soloist's virtuoso skills by using difficult techniques and rapid passages, eg solos such as
guitar solo A guitar solo is a melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. In 20th and 21st century traditional music and popular m ...
s. Fill passages are also distinguished from "lead" passages, in which a musical instrument becomes a melodic substitute for the singer for a substantial period.


Sources

{{Accompaniment Drumming Accompaniment Musical techniques Rhythm and meter Riffs