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Switching bass drum foot

Started by adam, October 30, 2003, 10:37 AM

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adam

This is probably a really stupid idea, but...

Has anyone tried reversing the bass drum so your playing primarily with your left foot? Similar to a left-handed setup.

The reason I was wondering is because of open-handed playing, where you play the hi-hat with the left hand and the snare with the right. If you could move the hi-hats to the right, and the bass drum over a little to the left, you could still retain all your chops with your hands and just re-learn your foot technique.

It seems more logical to me to do this because you would lose less by switching feet than by switching hands (well for me at least). There are a lot of little details with playing the snare, especially dynamics, and its hard to re-learn with the other hand. With bass, there are still those details but they aren't as pronounced.

Just wondering if this has been done before. I'm at school so I can't try it on my drumset but I will when I get home. See ya! -Adam

BBJones

Quote from: adam on October 30, 2003, 10:37 AM
There are a lot of little details with playing the snare, especially dynamics, and its hard to re-learn with the other hand.

That sounds like the perfect thing to practice :D

My theory is that you should be able to play anything on a left or right handed kit, or just switching your hands or just your feet to the other side.  I have double pedals so I practice leading with my left all the time, I do it much less with my hands (something that is hard to re-learn that I practice on ;))

If you have the money, you could setup a kit that allowed you to play left or right at any time.  Basically 2 sets of hats, double bass pedals etc.

Definitely not a stupid idea.  Whether it works for you or not is another question though :)

Mister Acrolite

That's a very interesting idea!

One caveat: I'm a big advocate of drummers being able to sit down behind a "conventional" drumkit (ie, a typical right-handed setup) and playing it without adjusting it.

This ability will allow you to sit in and spontaneously fit into more musical situations. Particularly if you hope or plan to be a gigging drummer, this is something to think about.

But let us know how your experiment turns out!

adam

The thing that sparked my interest was that my buddy was trying to sell his drumkit. I asked him if I could borrow it until he sold it (its a Pearl Export, same as mine except a few years older) and in return I'd clean it up nice. But I'll have 2 of everything (BD, hi-hats, ride, and the toms and snare but I dont know if I can do too much with those), so I'll be able to have a set of hats and ride on both the right and left.

If I worked on both sides equally, I think it would really help my playing in several ways. An obvious example would be double bass playing. I've been cheating(not really cheating) by decreasing the spring tension in the slave pedal to keep up with my right foot. Hoping I'll be able to change that after a little practice.

Another example would be how my right and left hands function. Right now, most of my hi-hat playing is pretty solid, no dynamics really. But with the snare I can do much more in terms of dynamics and variation. If I were to alternate, I would get the best of both worlds, and I could add those dynamics to the hi-hats and that solid groove to the snare. Same thing with the pedals. My left foot reacts differently than my right, because of the timing with the hi-hats and bass. Mixing them would produe some interesting results.

I doubt I'll see any immediate results, but I'll let you know how things work out. It might just help to switch things up a bit! -Adam

ChinaCymbol

Quote from: adam on October 30, 2003, 10:37 AM
This is probably a really stupid idea, but...

Has anyone tried reversing the bass drum so your playing primarily with your left foot? Similar to a left-handed setup.


I try to learn all my single petal stuff on both feet, also i try to learn all my hat/snare stuff open and cross sticked

Floyd42

My preference would go into a right-handed setup, but left-footed.

I tried several positions, and find that my left foot is stronger than the right one. And my right hand's stronger than my left...  :o Sounds a little weird, but I am build like that.

BTW, I try to work as much as possible to get the same control over my four limbs. Being able to play any drumkit with little adjustments is a long-term objective.