When you are practicing hand rudiments it’s most important to involve the feet as soon as possible. This is usually not to improve typical double bass technique, but to work out hand-feet-coordination.
I will explain why it is so important to let your feet dance while your hands are practicing all kind of rolls. And what you should avoid…
Hand-Feet-Coordination
One way to skill up the coordination between hands and feet is to play grooves. But there are two dangerous things:
- Most Grooves tend to work the same way. You know, one hand hits the snare, the other plays the Hi-Hat Pattern.
- The Hi-Hat Foot gets bored while the Kick Foot is doing the main job.
As for the second point, i know drummers who play since two or more years and are still not able to play some controlled beats with their Hi-Hat Pedal! It’s too sad…
A routine to avoid sleeping feet
This is a typical routine to work out hand-feet-coordination:
- Play a rudiment with your hands
- Play it together with some simple feet-figures
- Play it together with some more feet-figures
- Move the hand-stroke onto different Toms
- Keep on playing the feet stuff
Right after you learned to play a new combination, integrate the new development into your practical drumming. Just try to find a roll, break or fill-in that will work with the sticking and then add your feet to it.
At last it should be the most natural thing for you to move your feet every time you play hand rudiments and show off your hot chops.
Nice one guys keep it up