pocket player
Junior Member
you sure dont present yourself on a post as a experienced ,pro taught drummer !
you sure dont present yourself on a post as a experienced ,pro taught drummer !
240-250 bpm? what song is that? What kind of song is that?He's not wrong though, however he presents himself. He actually addressed the elephant in the room; the fact that 16th notes at 110 BPM is, frankly, slow, and heel toe is not the answer for more "speed" at that slow tempo.
BTW, I was about to go that same route when I started playing double bass. I hit a wall at 160 bpm, and gave up on singles and started learning heel toe. Thankfully I regrouped, doubled down on my singles and broke through to eventually 240-250 bpm.
I don't remember exactly how long that took since it was years ago, but it was at least 3-5 years.
To the OP, heel toe is very useful and actually fun to play and I recommend learning it. But not as an alternative to increasing single stroke speed below at least 180 BPM. Something is wrong if you've practiced singles "for years" and can't break 110 BPM. If you don't remedy that, I think you'll run into the same obstacles using heel toe.
I highly recommend George Kollias' double bass lessons/tutorials.
May I ask why you "regrouped" and went back to single strokes (using swivel technique I assume given your reference to George)?He's not wrong though, however he presents himself. He actually addressed the elephant in the room; the fact that 16th notes at 110 BPM is, frankly, slow, and heel toe is not the answer for more "speed" at that slow tempo.
BTW, I was about to go that same route when I started playing double bass. I hit a wall at 160 bpm, and gave up on singles and started learning heel toe. Thankfully I regrouped, doubled down on my singles and broke through to eventually 240-250 bpm.
I don't remember exactly how long that took since it was years ago, but it was at least 3-5 years.
To the OP, heel toe is very useful and actually fun to play and I recommend learning it. But not as an alternative to increasing single stroke speed below at least 180 BPM. Something is wrong if you've practiced singles "for years" and can't break 110 BPM. If you don't remedy that, I think you'll run into the same obstacles using heel toe.
I highly recommend George Kollias' double bass lessons/tutorials.
May I ask why you "regrouped" and went back to single strokes (using swivel technique I assume given your reference to George)?
Just curious as to why you went this route (guess heel toe wasn't working for you)?
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240-250 bpm? what song is that? What kind of song is that?
Fair enough. I tried single strokes for YEARS and just couldn't get anywhere near the speed/ endurance I needed to play the songs I wanted to play (thank God for heel toe)!No I don't swivel like Kollias. He said himself his ankles just naturally do that at a certain speed, and if your feet don't naturally swivel don't force it.
I gave single strokes another go because, although it sounds cliche, the fact is I realized my foot technique - and muscle memory - were not nearly as developed as I assumed they were and simply needed more time (months, years).
Here's a hint for anyone interested; hand and foot development (technique) gets exponentially better the longer you work on them.
Key word: exponentially. The reason is simple; the more you practice, the better your technique becomes, and your practice time is increasingly more productive.
You know I get I must be high when I post /ideas a lot. Is that a compliment or a diss? I think everyone is different and if they find something that works for them-then that's great. It doesn't mean it will work for everyone or it's right or wrong. I think the comments about how these videos follow a formula of catchy title and then the person make an appeal to authority is common. I don't think credentials really have anything to do with anything in a forum comments section ((though Jeff has awesome credentials that I'm envious-glad we have him here for sage advice)-that's an appeal to authority fallacy. In other words you can be an expert and be wrong-being an expert doesn't mean you are always right. But I do believe your experience level is worthy to evaluate in how you weigh their advice. So it doesn't mean they are always right but does mean they have a greater depth of knowledge and basis to make informed decisions. I see the merits of an argument as standing alone. I read that in Jeff's initial comments.-which were in no way argumentative and his posits had merit (he didn't have to qualify his expertise level but did so to demonstrate his opinion wasn't just off the cuff after playing drums a year). I think people often talk past each other being argumentative and defensive. Why can't we all just get along.
Yeah I get my panties in a wad about appeal to authority fallacy arguments because they are so widespread now in US. It's a distinction I see in statistics that people often make statistical " fallacy " arguments/inferences about individuals from popualtion data that are inappropriate. Like because New York has the second highest death rate Per Capita from COVID means living there increases your risk of death as an individual from COVID. No it doesn't that's an ecological fallacy making an inference about an individual from the population-your risk of COVID are same by age and risk factor you have like obesity, etc-the disparity revealed as rate Per Capita just means more died there (not why just they did-now you can perform studies to try and figure out why the disparity -like demographic of population, any policy issues like with nursing homes, etc. that might explain a disparity. Statistics can be misleading at times-because of distribution. So you have a thousand people one makes 999,000 dollars and the rest cumulative makes 1000 dollars. You get the impression just looking a 1000 dollars per person but no one makes 999,000 and 999 make a dollar. I use to work with a female vascular surgeon and the medical school decided to address if any disparities by gender in income. She was on committee and I saw some of the initial data and told her that won't find a disparity but it's bull crap. It was similar distribution it looked like-most female physicians had lower than males but a few females had pretty high -I suspected it would shift the mean-and I was right. Heck yes males were making more and still probably do. You can contrive a statistical story like the BS going on in my own country now.
Yeah first half ok but second half a rant. I deleted it. Seafroggy has inspired me to start writing so I started back working on a book I started long ago but I’m distracted by another topic too that begs for another book. So I’m researching both and reviewing peer-reviewed papers and some I don’t see how they got published and passed peer-review. Plenty of good papers but people will publish crap in weaker journals to fill up their CV. I know that serves the person and part of academia-,you have to publish to get promoted but it doesn’t serve the science. Dammit I’m ranting again lolWow, I have 2 things to say about this, you could cut and paste this into any forum, and at the same time wondering if the forum is being spammed when you see this.
That's where I've been for quite a few years. I'm playing with a classic rock and a country band so I've not been spending time on it much anymore. 160 singles yep that's me, metal wannabe. Freakin old people anywayI hit a wall at 160 bpm, and gave up on singles and started learning heel toe. Thankfully I regrouped, doubled down on my singles and broke through to eventually 240-250 bpm.
That's where I've been for quite a few years. I'm playing with a classic rock and a country band so I've not been spending time on it much anymore. 160 singles yep that's me, metal wannabe. Freakin old people anyway
If someone can only play 16th at 110 bpm then they have no business doing heel toe. I played faster than that as a kid on my first day just by running on the pedals.
Hi mate, just wanted to say from a neutral standpoint that all of the advice you received above about working on developing your singles first was seriously great advice coming from a good place based on the information available. Glad you’re sorted and happy with your new settings and heel/toe technique, keep smashing it!Telling someone they have no business trying other techniques is not great advice though. Have you asked what goals I had? How do I plan to incorporate the sound? How often would I use it? Do the majority of the songs I play use it? What is my family and career situation and how much time do I have dedicate to it? I'm not a studio musician and I'm not on a global tour and I don't have a new album coming out next week. I'm just someone that likes to have to have fun and I'm happy that there is a technique out there that is helping me playing songs that were previously out of my reach.
Oh absolutely! And I appreciate it! Just the line where I was getting mocked that I did not appreciate, but I get it...it's the internet... @Jeff Almeyda ... nothing personal, thanks for the advice. I do plan to continue practicing singles and improving speed though. I didn't mean to give the impression that I'm not. In fact, heel toe wouldn't even work at slower speeds (I don't think). I'm not using heel toe as a replacement for singles...just a tool I'm incorporating in the meantime to allow to get through a couple of songs that interject long and fast rolls at the end and is my only barrier from playing them well. If I can one day do those parts as singles, I'll be thrilled.
Thanks again all
They could call this 'Triple the size of your tom mount for no good reason'...sheesh, those mini-cranes are an over-engineered eye sore.This works, tried it,see results right away, Russ is a great educator & drummer good luck !
Great time, dynamics, and rudiments with the feet...imagine if he’d taken double bass seriously!?Sure, many already seen this but displays the connection of tap dancing and Buddy background, allowing him to have some proficiency without even trying.