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How do you kick?

Frost

Frost

Silver Member
With a lot of different techniques, many pioneered by members of these forums I'm just wondering which one most people use for single/double kicks.

Personally I lead heel up with my left foot, blasting heel up with just my right foot. Kind of like running on the spot.

A technique I picked up from Sean Reinert which I've been using a lot the last year is toe on the high hat, heel on the left kick pedal leading from the left foot to keep the kicks in 16ths the hat in 8ths.
 
It depends on what I'm playing, but the majority of my playing at the moment is heel-down, unburied beater. If I need to do faster doubles, I use the 'slide' technique. If I'm playing heavier material (as I was in a studio last night) I play heel up and bury the beater.

It also depends on what kind of drum I'm playing. If I'm using my 16" bass drum kit, I won't bury - it bends the pitch and kills the tone. If I'm using my 22" kick, then it depends on how it's tuned, but if it's muffled, I'll bury it. Otherwise, I try not to kill the tone too much. I only tend to play single pedal anyhow.

My hi-hat foot often rocks forward and back. I don't know when I started doing that, but it must've been a while ago and I only really noticed myself doing it recently!
 
I dont play double, but I always heel up. I feel like I get alot more power and speed that way. Ive always been kind of a heavy footed player and I feel like my thumping kick has kind of been my trademark.
 
I play a single pedal but have been thinking of getting a double just for practice to get my left foot more "involved".

I seem to play it heel down and up - 50/50. I keep my foot (size 9 1/2) half way up the pedal w/my heel on the floor. This way I don't have to move my foot as far - shorter distance faster speed. And when I need more power my heel comes up... I always play off the head, just can't seem to bury it.
 
A couple of interesting responses so far,

I play heel up but I don't feel like I bury the kick, usually I just feather it. The kit is untriggered but I have wooden beaters and tight heads, so there is a lot of definition there, it is a small kick.
 
I have a prosthetic left foot. I still have my knee which is great but no left foot, ankle and i'm missing 3/4s of my shin. so for me that side is just kind of a stomp. my right foot depends on what i'm playing. mostly heel up, but lately i've been trying a heel/toe rocking motion. seems to work, just need to practice it alot more.
 
I mostly play heel down at lower dynamics, and heel up at higher ones. Though my "heel up" tends to be more of a whole foot technique and I often finish my stroke with my heel on the heel plate or just above it. I tend to let the beater come away from the head unless I'm specifically going for a short, abrupt sound.

Using different techniques has forced me to do some work on my balance, etc. to ensure that I can move comfortably from one to the other without effecting my hihat foot, which I mostly play with a full foot technique, except at very low volumes, or at very quick tempos.
 
Ha, ha. I do the left foot hi-hat and left beater pedal too. I usually grab the chain of my hi hat between my big toe and next (for fine control), then use my heel on the left pedal. I have thick calluses between my toes too. I like jazz so often I use the left beater to either dampen the bass head or leave it wide open, and accent notes. It is great to have a double bass for fills when you just play with one or two toms.
I'm curious about the 16 in bass? I've modified my 16 in tom to act as a bass but I just can't get the sound I want. I agree you definitely have to play it single beater and open because if you lay down on the head it just goes flat. What kind of head are yall playing on a 16 in bass??
 
GetAgrippa said:
Ha, ha. I do the left foot hi-hat and left beater pedal too. I usually grab the chain of my hi hat between my big toe and next (for fine control), then use my heel on the left pedal. I have thick calluses between my toes too. I like jazz so often I use the left beater to either dampen the bass head or leave it wide open, and accent notes. It is great to have a double bass for fills when you just play with one or two toms.
I'm curious about the 16 in bass? I've modified my 16 in tom to act as a bass but I just can't get the sound I want. I agree you definitely have to play it single beater and open because if you lay down on the head it just goes flat. What kind of head are yall playing on a 16 in bass??
Click to expand...

I have a 14 kick with a standard head, it sounds like an angry floor tom being whacked with a mallet. I like that though, and it's easy to transport, plus if it is triggered it hardly matters what it is, it's easier to mute a tiny kick.
 
Thanks! I think I just need to keep at the 16 in bass to get use to it. Funny I tried my 14 in tom too and had similar thoughts about the sound. I definitely am tired dragging around a large bass and it is too loud for small venues.
 
I play heel-up alot, play heel down for crotchet notes though. (like 2 and 4 etc. etc.)
But when it's something tricky, I do heel-toe. However I can only really do it when I have leather converse (which I ripped, stupid me) or my boots. But yeah.
I have different techniques, tried swivelling a few times too... Bad idea.
I'm also a single pedaller :)
 
For me its mainly a heel up "rocking" motion, like jojo mayers technique, but i use more of my toes as i play without shoes..this means i get less power out of it, but i am correcting this slowly. When i want to get powerful doubles its just simple slide technique, and for triples i just hope for the best as i suck at these (but am getting there) but its mainly like a slide with an extra whip of the ankle at the end. I also bury the beater D:
 
Depends on the speed and volume necessary. My basic stroke is a step - I basically step on the pedal, as if I'm walking in place. My feet are totally relaxed with this. This is really useful for the speed required for nearly all pop songs. To get a quick double, I activate the foot, much like Moeller. The leg steps on the pedal and the ball of the foot makes the 2nd stroke. It is a true double stroke. I can also reverse it so the louder stroke (heel stroke) is 2nd.

This is not the rocking motion I might use on the hi-hat. It doesn't really rock at all, but it can feel a little like a slide when it really gets going
 
I like to do it the other way. For a quick double I like to make the first stroke with the toe while lifting my heel up a little bit. Then I drop my heel for the second hit.

I find that doing it that way allows the accent to fall on the second hit, giving a better sound.
 
I play both heel up and down, I also do the rolling/up down stroke thing a lot. I try just to develop all of them and then I just naturally do what fits the music. I can't really say I use one thing for loud and one for soft playing, one for double and one for singles, it depends on a lot of other things. Playing heel up isn't just one thing either. I'll use more or less leg, depending on volume. Not much different from my hand technique when you really get down to it. I seldom burry the beater at all. That depends more on the kit and the tuning, though.

For really fast tripple quadruple strokes though, I can only do that heel down at this point. I can bouncew indefinetly heel up, but with more complicated rhythms I feel more at home heel down. We'll see how it goes when I get a better throne.
 
I play heel down all the time. To me I have more control over the volume of the bass with my heel down.
 
Heel down all the time. I am trying to develope some kind of heel up playing but it's not going well so far!
 
Question is: Do you really want to? Might as well spend that time playing heel down all the time. I feel like there are some things that are good to be able to do in different ways, like a paradiddle then a paradiddle backwards or something, but learning multiple movement techniques seems impractical. Could cause interference in memory stores
 
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