What exercises/drills improved your bass drum foot technique and speed the most?

A

aarono2690

Junior Member
Started working on The Art of Bop Drumming and have tried feathering my BD with mixed results. This book really shines a light on my drumming inadequacies with special humiliation aimed at my foot technique!

Any drills or exercises you found useful for building foot speed and control? Do I just do Stick Control exercises with my feet daily to really get them into shape?
 
I use the same exercises that I do with my hands...lots of basic drum corps type stuff...8 on a foot, some doubles exercises; the first page of Stone Stick Control

also, playing along to Iron Maiden, and Queensryche (among other metal)back in he day helped. I did not have a double bass set up for the first 20 years of my playing, so I had to make my single foot sound like a double set up
 
You can already play really fast in an uncontrolled way by just letting your foot twitch out. With some fooling around and sounding bad, you can gradually gain some control over that so you can use it musically.

I also suggest working on audible stuff first, deprioritize inaudible stuff.
 
aarono2690 said:
Any drills or exercises you found useful for building foot speed and control?
Click to expand...

A variety of exercises are useful, some already mentioned, but without a doubt the single most effective thing I've done to improve control is practice doubles.
It improves the precision with which you start and stop the pedal motion, and when you improve that, so many other things fall into place.

And of course, it's good to also combine doubles and singles to supplement the work done on doubles alone.
 
Colin Bailey’s “Bass Drum Control” is what my instructor had me work out of for years. Like any of the classics, the exercises can be expanded on to extrapolate a gazillion variations/themes.

 
bud7h4 said:
A variety of exercises are useful, some already mentioned, but without a doubt the single most effective thing I've done to improve control is practice doubles.
It improves the precision with which you start and stop the pedal motion, and when you improve that, so many other things fall into place.

And of course, it's good to also combine doubles and singles to supplement the work done on doubles alone.
Click to expand...

that is why I mentioned Queensryche....Rockenfield used a lot of single footed doubles. I know others did as well, but for me, it was the first place I heard them, so there are warm fuzzies involved
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
that is why I mentioned Queensryche....Rockenfield used a lot of single footed doubles. I know others did as well, but for me, it was the first place I heard them, so there are warm fuzzies involved
Click to expand...

 
toddbishop said:
You can already play really fast in an uncontrolled way by just letting your foot twitch out. With some fooling around and sounding bad, you can gradually gain some control over that so you can use it musically.

I also suggest working on audible stuff first, deprioritize inaudible stuff.
Click to expand...
Like everything that you can just naturally do, you got to start slow and increase speed as you get used to it.

simple exercises are:

RRRR LLLL repeat for about a minute at the fastest speed you can play it clean (by clean I mean the volume of your hits should be pretty even).

Then do
RRRRRRRR LLLLLLLL for another minute

Then RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRL RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRL Again as fast as you can play it clean.

Take some rest you don't want to feel pain just a little burn but don't push it too much.

Repeat a few times to accomplish between 20 and 30 min, call it a day.

You of course can play with whatever technique is comfortable to you Heel up or heel down etc.

And you can make any variation of the exercises you want as long as it is fun for you.

Finally find a slow song with double bass and try to play the bass at double the speed. for example Lamb Of God's Lay to rest. very easy song but not so easy to play at double the speed.
or find a slightly faster song to practice stamina Such as Decapitated's Spheres of Madness.

Then after a month or two you should have goals:

To be able to play Juular by Devin Townsend :

or Morbid Angel's Dawn Of The Angry:

or if you really want to test your stamina this song: meshuggah the demon's name is surveillance:

or this:

 
doggyd69b said:
Like everything that you can just naturally do, you got to start slow and increase speed as you get used to it.
Click to expand...

That's the thing, the speed is already there. I guess there are different approaches-- start slow and speed up, start fast and add control. What hangs people up going slow>fast is that the techniques are really different-- very slow you're doing single notes, very fast you're managing continuous momentum.

For actual exercises, there are a couple of good pages in Funky Primer:

funky-primer-bd-workout_01.pngfunky-primer-bd-workout_02.png

To condition for double bass, you could play those with both feet in unison, not alternating-- both feet playing the complete bass drum rhythm at the same time.
 
aarono2690 said:
Any drills or exercises you found useful for building foot speed and control? Do I just do Stick Control exercises with my feet daily to really get them into shape?
Click to expand...
here's what you do. You get the music "into your ears".

Your ears (once all the music is in) will play your feet, hands, and sometimes rear end ; ) kidding on that last one.

Ears play the drums; If it's in your ears; hands feet Follow.. Nothing (much) to do with arms and legs (unless it's some endurance run...
Ears/ Brain
will, over time, over repeated listenings, translate down to hands/feet. You gotta to want to do it- it- being putting in the listening time.
It's not a mechanical issue- the brain will figure out-the mechanics eventually. Meanwhile the Info is Up in your noggin...

Repetitious Exercises (muscle train) will sometimes get you into trouble later on (that's another subject)
Best to have it in heart and soul (ears and brain) rest will follow

do, Repeated listening's to the genre you are interested in.
Ear Training.
Go back to the beginning (of the genre) and come forward

don't tell anyone I recommended this.
ps: I'm not saying not to do any exercises but balance it evenly with massive Ear training
 
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jda said:
Repetitious Exercises (muscle train) will sometimes get you into trouble later on (that's another subject)
Click to expand...

That's really interesting......I'm intrigued by your statement.

Why is that jda?

Can I ask why it can get you into trouble?

I just always assumed that repetition is the best way to go.
 
Benthedrummer said:
That's really interesting......I'm intrigued by your statement.

Why is that jda?

Can I ask why it can get you into trouble?

I just always assumed that repetition is the best way to go.
Click to expand...
you don't wanna know.. ; )

Later in Life "when you are "so used" to say, two (strokes) in each hand" when the time comes you may want to "break into three" in each hand,.

Undoing all that-- muscle memory---- can be a ..
That's just one example

The problem with repetition is what's repeated (over and over) isn't / can never be, all-inclusive
does that make sense?
unless you have a very wide varied all inclusive (it's almost impossible) practice regime;

you can -later in life- become a prisoner of patterns
 
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aarono2690 said:
Got any links to an exercise or something I can start with? Not familiar with Samba.
Click to expand...

This is a simpler version of Samba with :
* single stroke roll for hands
* consistent doubles right leg on Bass drum
* single left leg on hi-hats.

Video is from Mr. Mike Barnes on YouTube.

 
jda said:
you don't wanna know.. ; )

Later in Life "when you are "so used" to say, two (strokes) in each hand" when the time comes you may want to "break into three" in each hand,.

Undoing all that-- muscle memory---- can be a ..
That's just one example

The problem with repetition is what's repeated (over and over) isn't / can never be, all-inclusive
does that make sense?
unless you have a very wide varied all inclusive (it's almost impossible) practice regime;

you can -later in life- become a prisoner of patterns
Click to expand...

I guess by listening and playing to lots of different drummers and styles as opposed to playing patterns, you kinda get that all-inclusiveness that you have mentioned earlier......... right?
 
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Dom Famulero has a book called pedal control. It has exercises with and without using the base drum pedal.
 
Colin Bailey has good kick videos and exercises. I like to tap out theme songs like Bonanza, Lone Rager, Addams family, the Marlboro commercial theme, etc. It sounds easy- it ain’t lol.
 
Two songs that definitely helped me was Toto's "Hold The Line" with the great Jeff Porcaro, especially the ending. That was great for my right foot. And, I also enjoyed Mahavishnu's "Birds Of Fire" with the great Billy Cobham. It starts off quite slow for a double bass pattern in I believe 9/8, and every time it cycles through, it gets faster, which makes it, in my opinion, a great practice tool.


Dan
 
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