Keeping Time On The Hi-Hat With The Left Foot

Intellidjent

Intellidjent

Junior Member
Hi y'all!

So I've been surfing the Drummerworld forums for quite some time now and finally decided to join up!

So here's the thing... I've been listening to a lot of progressive rock/metal lately and find that I can keep time better when playing the hi-hat with my left foot. I have no problem with playing quarter notes on my left foot whatsoever, but as soon as I play eighth notes on my left foot, I feel that I lack the limb independence to play, for example: 4/4 on the crash, with the snare on 3 and a polyrhythmic pattern on the kick or anything relatively complicated. Is there perhaps any exercises, instructional DVD's/books, etc. that you guys would recommend to build limb independence and learn how to stay locked onto those eighth notes with my left foot?

Thanks,
Intellidjent
 
I had some trouble developing 8th notes as well. There were a couple things that accelerated my development on the left foot.

The first thing was to practice beats that isolated the hat.

The second was to work on heal-toe on the hat. Now, my left/brain foot is still articulating 8th notes even when i'm playing quarter notes.

The last thing I did was to modify my practice pad routine. I used to pseudo-march while working out my sticking patterns. I'd do left-right-left-right on the feet like I was walking. Now I do heal-toe on the left while doing toe-heal on the right and rock my feet. It's kind of like riding a bicycle.

The heal-toe was probably the most difficult thing I had to learn, as it required that I un-learn my previous technique. There were some incredibly discouraging moments when I first started which had me doubting my ability to continue playing the instrument. Most of the difficulties disappeared after two weeks of practice. It was a really rough two weeks though.



The linked videos are just examples of the various lessons that I focused on during my left foot development. I had a thread going where others offered some additional encouraging advice.
 
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Every time you hear a song, or the windshield wipers, or anything with consistent time, tap your foot to it in 8ths; if you're sitting do the bass drum part too. This also helps with your awareness of the beat in your listening.
 
Intellidjent said:
Thanks for info, I will definitely look into heel-toe again (as it's something I've tried in the past and gave up on by the third day, lol). Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on what you mean by practicing beats that "isolated the hat"?
Click to expand...

Whenever I played a beat that had my right hand on the ride, my hat work would be sloppy, because I couldn't hear/fixate on it. In the beat I linked, the hat drives the beat. It cannot be the slightest bit sloppy, because it is the focal point of the entire groove, and the beat will fall apart without it.

Give that Bonham beat a shot and you'll see what I mean. It's an awesome 'workout' beat if you want to get sore and sweaty.
 
start simple

play unison 8th notes on your right hand, right foot and left foot ... snare drum on 2 & 4 with a met

when those are completely locked in and not flamming at all drop the right foot to only 1 & 3 and keep the right hand locked with the left foot


no point in playing anything more complex than that until you can play that perfectly

after that play unison quarters with everything but your left foot and run your left foot through some subdivisions .
quarters to 8ths to 8th trips and back ... two measures each ... for example

do not underestimate the importance of unisons ... huge mistake made by many drummers
 
double_G said:
i agree w/ "Who is Tony"'s comments here.

RE unison strokes, check Thomas Lang's bootcamp unison exercises...they are friggin GREAT and do cover 4/3, 4/5, 4/7 w/ hi-hat quarters at min 5:50.

+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7jUoK6hHR0&index=3&list=RDdZgyD1y3qqY
Click to expand...

Somehow I think you mean 3/4, 5/4, and 7/4.

Regarding the topic, yet another useful exercise might be to run 8ths on the hi-hat and play an 8th or 16th grid on the bass drum, like this:
16thaccent.jpg

just disregarding the regular notes and playing the accents on the kick, eventually evolving to doubles (1e x4, e+ x4, +a x4, 1 a x4, etc) and triplets. Greb's "Language of Drumming" warmup has a very good grid like this, I'm not sure if it's online though.

The ending pattern of Tesseract's "Origin" is a great challenge for this kind of thing. Try slowing it down and playing along.
 
Vaguely on topic: Tesseract were rehearsing in a studio next door to the one our band rehearses in and the bass drumming was like a machine gun. I was in awe at the speed and accuracy of their playing: I just hope they were too loud to have heard us practising...
 
I actually took a lesson with Jay once. He's a great guy, not as technically minded as one might think. You'd expect them to have good group timing since the instrumentalists have been playing together for at least 5 years...
 
Thanks everyone for the help. I'll be sure to try both the Bonham exercise and the one suggested by porter. Wish I could have a lesson with Jay! :p
 
All the aforementioned advice is great.

But beware! Once you start playing left foot hi-hat 8th notes, you will become comfortable playing the offbeats on the bass drum with your right foot. And then when you play double bass, you'll find yourself wanting to lead with the left foot, because it's begun to feel very natural.

Or maybe that's just me.
 
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