Oh no! Not another double bass question!

Do you also practice with your weaker foot leading? Some people (with George Kollias among those) don't recommend to focus on your left foot - I disagree.


Wow that's really odd coming from him. After only a couple of practice sessions incorporating this I was noticably better. I also use it when working on limb separation.
 
Wow that's really odd coming from him. After only a couple of practice sessions incorporating this I was noticeably better. I also use it when working on limb separation.
Well George certainly knows what he's talking about. Just to put it into context - George says that focusing on the weaker foot might disturb the 'natural balance' of the feet meaning that there has to be a strong/leading/dominating foot and the weaker/slave foot will follow. He says that he's been witnessing drummers who mess up their playing by practicing their weaker foot and would have issues with flams because their weaker foot wouldn't 'accept' its role as the slave foot - George's wording was somewhat differently but to the same effect.

I do see the logic here but well, what applies to the hands can't be wrong relating to the feet. And to me it's obvious that the chain will be as strong (or weak) as the weakest limb(s). From my experience it's absolutely worth working on one's weaker limbs - both hands and feet.
 
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Wow. Alot of great advice here.

Now we'd like to hear your money beats. 'Cause that's where the money comes from ;)


Financial gain is only one of the many, many motivations for drumming.

It never even enters into the picture for a lot of people.
 
Double bass drumming is probably the number one thing that drummers are asking about. Youtube is full of videos and tricks and whatnot. I agree with everybody here that it comes down topractice. I've been doing double bass for 9 years or so, and still suck at it. Although, I am getting better.

Attached are 2 videos of me using two different methods. the one, on the gretsch, is heel-toe doubles. I actually like this method better, but some feel it's cheating. I do not. Plus, getting them even is tough. I may need a longboard as I wear a mammoth size 15 shoe(US).

The second video is me on my V-drums. I just learned how to do this about a month ago, so it's still sloppy and needs work. But I was super happy with being able to get this far. I needed this as my frustration was growing. I got this from a Youtube video, I can look it up if you would like to see it.

These were not my best performances in either method, I just happened to have them on video at the moment. Let me know if you want more explanation on either one.


Al
 
Financial gain is only one of the many, many motivations for drumming.

It never even enters into the picture for a lot of people.

I'm partially kidding. Money beat is also where you can lay your groove down so wide that everybody wants to play with you in there. That has to happen before anyone decides they might want to pay you anyway, and for some people you can do it with even two bass drums. I'm assuming the "picture" is that people want to play their drums with other people and not just alone in their practice space because that's the magic of music.
 
I'm crudely practicing some triplets here at 100 bpm.

Try playing the triplets like this, I think you will find it easier and able to be played faster with more control.
 

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...I'm assuming the "picture" is that people want to play their drums with other people and not just alone in their practice space because that's the magic of music.


Been there, done that.

Don't want to de-rail the thread. Might make a good topic though.
 
I'm assuming the "picture" is that people want to play their drums with other people and not just alone in their practice space because that's the magic of music.

Not me, I don't play well with others. You wanna play with me, it'll cost you. ;D
 
Attached are 2 videos of me using two different methods. the one, on the gretsch, is heel-toe doubles. I actually like this method better, but some feel it's cheating. I do not. Plus, getting them even is tough. I may need a longboard as I wear a mammoth size 15 shoe(US).

You seem to be doing pretty good with heel-toe. I experimented with heel-toe for a while several years back, even going so far as to actually get longboards for that very reason, and I did not end up liking the technique. First (as you said) if you have large feet it is very difficult to do. I can tell you that in your case, with a size 15 shoe, longboards won't necessarily solve your problem. I have about a size 12 foot and played in my socks, and even that extra added couple inches did not give me enough room to do the technique. I had to either move the ball of my foot way up toward the end, or hit the part where the heel joint connected to the pedal.

The other thing is that I found the pedals difficult to control with heel-toe.

So far I have been using a whipping toe-toe motion (where the leg comes down and the ankle rocks back and forth, but the toe makes both strokes - very similar to this technique) on a standard pedal and find this works well for executing fast double strokes. I get a lot more control over the speed and intensity of the strokes. But I don't know how well that kind of technique translates into speed double bass, to me it seems it will wear your ankles out real quick.
 
You seem to be doing pretty good with heel-toe. I experimented with heel-toe for a while several years back, even going so far as to actually get longboards for that very reason, and I did not end up liking the technique. First (as you said) if you have large feet it is very difficult to do. I can tell you that in your case, with a size 15 shoe, longboards won't necessarily solve your problem. I have about a size 12 foot and played in my socks, and even that extra added couple inches did not give me enough room to do the technique. I had to either move the ball of my foot way up toward the end, or hit the part where the heel joint connected to the pedal.

The other thing is that I found the pedals difficult to control with heel-toe.

So far I have been using a whipping toe-toe motion (where the leg comes down and the ankle rocks back and forth, but the toe makes both strokes - very similar to this technique) on a standard pedal and find this works well for executing fast double strokes. I get a lot more control over the speed and intensity of the strokes. But I don't know how well that kind of technique translates into speed double bass, to me it seems it will wear your ankles out real quick.

Thanks. Ya, I was afraid that a longboard wouldn't be the solution. I do have a Vruk, and I kind of like it, it works, but not always, for some reason. But it extends the foot board by a ton. Pretty cool. This "whipping" technique sounds different, I don't thinki I;ve seen this one before. May have to give it a go.
 
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