DOUBLE BASS DRUMMING

While playing steady 16th on your feet, play all the hand patterns you know for a few bars each... double strokes, some paradiddles, then flams, and flam fills, and quaters and eighths on the ride.

Then speed up your metronome a bit, and play RL on the bass followed by RL on the snare over and over again. Then lead with the left hand and right foot, then left foot and right hand, then left foot and left hand.

Swap in 4 beats on the bass, then 2 on the hands. Then 2 on the hands and 4 on the bass. Move these patterns around the toms.

As mentioned before, triplets on the bass with a ride pattern over the top. Then you can try 3 on the bass, three on the high tom, three on the bass, three on the mid tom etc. etc.


The possibilities are endless, and with these sort of exercises i hope to become a controlled and skilled double pedal player who can lead with either foot, and play a complex patterns on the bass, not just straight 16ths. My approach to practise is that if its stretching you, its benefitting you. And with a lot of different routines you can switch between them when you get bored, but you're in essence learning the same skills.
 
What you shouldn't do though is ONLY practicing double bass technique. I have found that foot technique is much much more easily accuired than hand technique, and everything should also be able to be put in groove context. So I just hope every metal player realizes not to only practice with your feet and with some weird technique like heel-toe or swivel, at first at least.

Oh absolutely. I wasn't suggesting that double bass is paramount or anything, but on this forum and others I keep seeing people going "you haven't been playing long enough to work on double bass yet!" as though you have to "graduate" to double bass or something. Whatever techniques you'd like to hone, work on 'em right? Just don't neglect anything that would be useful.
 
Oh absolutely. I wasn't suggesting that double bass is paramount or anything, but on this forum and others I keep seeing people going "you haven't been playing long enough to work on double bass yet!" as though you have to "graduate" to double bass or something. Whatever techniques you'd like to hone, work on 'em right? Just don't neglect anything that would be useful.

Yeah, you CAN start using a double pedal on the first day, and I actually would encourage it. But just have to realize there's other stuff in front of you too, actually quite a lot of other stuff if you are a metal drummer. =P And most of them aren't played with feet.
 
I think the problem might be my legs changing to using my ancles, i dont think i know how to do this, im solid all the way doing 100-110 but when i start to increase the tempo i cant get my legs or ancles to move quick enough, im using a pearl demon drive pedal, is there anything i can do to help create my ancle motion and start speeding my way up?
 
I think the problem might be my legs changing to using my ancles, i dont think i know how to do this, im solid all the way doing 100-110 but when i start to increase the tempo i cant get my legs or ancles to move quick enough, im using a pearl demon drive pedal, is there anything i can do to help create my ancle motion and start speeding my way up?

Move up slowly. If you're comfortable at 110, just keep drilling that for a few days until it's easy. Then do 115, etc.

Don't just sit there doing straight 16ths, either. Make patterns, go from 8ths to 8th triplets to 16ths and back down, etc. Makes it more interesting and helps work on coordination.
 
As well as moving slowly upwards to the speed you want to attain, use lots and lots of patterns to mix it up. I've found mixing something up keeps you on your toes (figuratively speaking) and you're more likely to progress. Works for most things you want to get better at as well. ie fitness, guitar.
 
I think the problem might be my legs changing to using my ancles, i dont think i know how to do this, im solid all the way doing 100-110 but when i start to increase the tempo i cant get my legs or ancles to move quick enough, im using a pearl demon drive pedal, is there anything i can do to help create my ancle motion and start speeding my way up?

you don't really start using your ankles much in double bass drumming until you hit around 180bpm 16ths. For me, anything below 150bpm 16ths is all leg, then you start to add a bit of ankle movement along with full leg movement between 150-180 or 190 bpm 16ths, then after that it's pretty much all rebound and ankle movement alone.

When I was starting out I did the Derek Roddy workout I found on youtube that helped me out a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPFE...3ABEAA36&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11

another thing you can try is set your metronome to 60bpm, and play for 4 or 8 or 12 or 16 bars or whatever, and play each one of these patterns with your kicks while keeping a constant 4/4 beat on top, with the snare on the "3"

start with 8ths (2 strokes per high hat), then 8th triplets (3 strokes per high hat), then 16ths (4 strokes per hh), then 16th triplets (6 strokes per hh), followed with 32nds (8 strokes per hh)

If you can play the 32nds, you are playing 120bpm 16ths, so you are then 10bpm faster than you were previously able to do.

Once 60bpm gets easy, go up 5 bpm, and do it again. When you are playing the 32nds portion you will be going 10 bpm faster than you were on whatever your last level of doing this exercise was.

Do the exercise a few times a week for 10 minutes or so.

I used this to get from 120bpm to 185bpm clean in about a year, and I don't practice as much as I would like to as my kit is in a jam space 50 miles from my house.
 
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Would it make sense to build up strength on your weaker foot before trying to achieve maximum speed with both. Theoreticly, if you also set time aside in your practice routine to play only with your weaker foot, you would build up muscle memory therefore making it less of a challenge to build speed when using both feet. My left foot/leg is far weaker than my right which i believe is part of my double bass problem. Just a thought.
 
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