Once linear playing is established (see fusion-linear-basics), the next step is to build a vocabulary of repeatable cells. A linear cell is a short pattern — three to six notes — distributed across hands and feet, where no two limbs strike simultaneously. Chained together, cells produce the long flowing phrases you hear in fills by Vinnie Colaiuta, Mark Guiliana, and Eric Harland.
This lesson covers the four most useful cells:
- RLK — three-note: hand, hand, foot. Triplet-friendly.
- RKL — three-note variant: hand, foot, hand. Different feel.
- RLRK — four-note: classic 16th-note cell. Lines up with the bar.
- RKLRKL — six-note: lives over the bar like a hemiola.
Each is short enough to internalise quickly; chained, they cover most of what working fusion drummers play.
A Word On Notation
In the exercises below, "K" is rendered as a kick in the feet voice. Sticking annotations on the hands voice show R/L only. The renderer doesn't show foot strokes inline with hand strokes, but on the staff they appear in the right time-position because the rests in the hands voice are placeholders.
Exercises
The cell is R hand → L hand → Kick — repeated four times across four beats of 8th-note triplets. Three voices, three positions, no overlap. This is the fusion triplet fill in its purest form. Once it loops, move the L hand around the toms — hi tom, mid tom, floor tom — and the same cell becomes a melodic fill.
Same three voices, different order: R hand → Kick → L hand. Putting the kick in the middle of the cell entirely changes the feel — it sounds heavier, more grounded. Compare side-by-side with exercise 1 by playing each for 4 bars. The musical implication: where you put the foot in the cell determines whether the line floats or lands.
Four-note cell: R-hat → L-snare → R-hat → Kick. One cell per beat. This is the most-used 16th-note linear shape in fusion — Steve Smith and Dave Weckl use it as a default pattern. Note how it lines up cleanly with the bar (one cell = one beat) — unlike the next exercise.
Six-note cell: R K L R K L. With 16 sixteenths in a bar of 4/4 and a six-note cell, the cell wraps every 1.33 bars. That displacement is the engine of the phrase — it sounds restless on a bar-by-bar basis but resolves on the 3rd bar. Loop it for at least 3 bars; the resolution on bar 4's downbeat is half the point. Vinnie's signature.
A melodic linear fill. The four-note RLRK cell stays consistent, but the L hand walks through the kit: snare, hi tom, mid tom, floor tom. Each beat's L lands on a new drum; the result is a one-bar tom-fill that's also a steady linear texture. This is the bridge from "linear vocabulary" to "linear soloing" — once the L hand can move freely, every cell becomes a melodic statement.