DRUMMERS: Heel Up or Heel Down?

[plutonic]

[quote="Spec A!"]
After a little more thought, my knee/thigh totally floats all the time. IOW there is no rest, and I guess this is what I mean by dancing. I have my heel up I'd say 98/99 % of the time, but I play a combination of flexing my ankle AND using my knee/thigh/whole leg. My legs are constantly bouncing (take a look at any of my youtube vids) which I guess is providing alot of the power, but the finesse comes from the ankle movements in conjunction with the whole leg.
[/quote]

Except for the floating, this makes total sense to me. Looks like I'm going to be doing a lot more core work. Then maybe it will feel more like floating. Now it's more like sinking. I do not understand the floating description.

[quote="DirtyMartini"]
I could be way off, but would it be a bit like driving a car? Your foot never rests with its weight on the gas pedal, and when you first learn to drive, you can't believe it will ever be possible to keep your knee bent and leg afloat all the time. But after a while you figure out how to adjust the seat to make it the most comfortable, learn how much or how little pressure can be applied at a "rest" state, and just get used to it.
[/quote]

Yes. This is also why cruise control was invented.

[Spec A!]

What I mean by floating- my heel does not rest, and the weight of my leg is not supported by my heel or my foot resting on the pedal. My legs are pretty much in constant motion, the balls of my feet are making the primary contact with either pedal, sometime they stay in contact with the pedal board on the up and down strokes, other times they float above and punch down.

IOW- I'm all over the place.

[Johnny O]

[quote="plutonic"][quote="Johnny O"]
Always have played with my heel down. Makes me feel more confident in finding the beat. Now, if you use heel down, have you ever got that top of your foot/ankle cramp while you were playing? Bah!
[/quote]

This is an important observation of HEEL DOWN:

The physical trouble with "Heel Down" it seems to me, is when you DON'T want to rest the beater on the head. I DO NOT want to rest the beater on the head. I want that drum to go BOOOM (beater smacks and rebounds) not BLOP (Beater smacks and stays).

quote]

Exactly!!! If you listen to Stew's kick on record, it doesn't punch through the mix (like his awesome snare drum). I want my kick to thunder (controlled of course) through the music. The best example I can give is Tony Thompson on the Power Station album, that came out when I was learning and I discovered the exact point you made in your statement.

[DirtyMartini]

[quote="plutonic"]Yes. This is also why cruise control was invented.[/quote]

Shit!

Then I'm just going with Anthony Smash.

[Chatchka]

I think you are on to something DM. It is better articulated than what I was trying to say yesterday about the throne. When the throne is positioned correctly (vertically), the stress is mostly removed from the leg in the heel up position.

Pluto, Psoas-schmoas! (damn you for making me look this up) (in my best drum dominatrix voice) You'll get your percussive workout and you'll like it, Beeeatch!

As for Boom vs. Blop. I hear what you are saying. That is an interesting question. I don't know what an electronic kit sounds like, but on an acoustic kit, I wonder if some of that sound difference is controlled by the front head on the kick. My kick (Tama Swingstars) tends to sound really boomy (and that is with the beater forward), to the point that my fellow musical peeps want me to get an EMAD head with the foam rings that bring down the boom and to fill the cavity of the drum with a blanket -- intentional blopping. (Which I will not do, as I like the sound of the drum just as it is. So there. Spllllt!)

Also, isn't it likely that some aspect of the boom will be muffled by subsequent hits. Kind of like that super slow-mo video of the fellow hitting the snare head, which looked just like a drop of water in a tea cup, until he hit it again. That is to say, my guess is that the beater head is only going to boom until you hit it again, so if you are moving fast, it won't make as much of a difference to the boom as perhaps tuning the front head, or how the drum is mic-ed (sp.). BTW, this paragraph is pure conjecture on my part, so if there are experts out there, please weigh in.

[plutonic]

I LOVE not having a real job.

ONly 4 students today, so lots of time to experiment with my heels, toes, and balls.

OF MY FEET.

Balls of my feet.

I had a revelation and I think finally might be learning some of this dancing concept of Anthony SMASH's.

It's not HEEL UP.
It's BALL DOWN.

If I make like I'm actually kicking that thing, and point the ball of my foot down, it unifies the action of my leg, which I think is very good. It also ties the action nicely all the way to the hip. Whole leg. The power of which Anthony speaks. I can really SMASH.

BALL goes down, KNEE Goes up, and even the HIP goes up and maybe a little forward, too. It's like a toe step in dancing. That's what I mean. Can anybody here get with that? Dancing. Toe step.

Not HEEL UP. TOE DOWN.

The nice thing is that on the way there or the way back, you can flick the ankle and get a nice little double whack. To finagle some of the finesse of which Anthony speaks.

[Chatchka]

Or, as GinaSuperCat likes to say, "Go Club Tama, Balls OUT!"

Balls down, indeed. Harrumph.

[Lynne]

[quote="GinaSuperCat"]As for bass drum technique: for the most part, it is a matter of preference and what works best for you. When you are just starting out, go with what feels better. If you ask a rhetorician, the answer is 'it depends...' <grin>

...

So while you are working on three and four way coordination, I would suggest sticking predominently with what feels more natural and less awkward for just working towards coordinating the limbs and building muscle memory. But I would also suggest thinking about it as perhaps less a permanent decision you are setting in stone now and keeping open the possibility of the different things you can do with the different positions for the future.

Keep rocking STEWART drummers, the more the merrier!! -GSC[/quote]

Funny, I always tell my students that the right answer in economics is always "it depends" !

For me, kick drum is generally heel up. My throne's at a height so that if my foot's flat on the ground my knee's at 90 degrees, but I also pull the throne a bit back from the kick to adjust how high my heel is off of the ground when the ball of my foot is on the pedal and the beater (is that the right word? It is for the bodhran) is on the drum head, which is my resting position on that drum.

My experience is similar to GSC's in that my core strength drives a lot of my drumming position, and I engage first the core and then the hip flexor and then the quads on the bass drum stroke ... unless it's really rapid 16th notes on the bass in succession, in which case it's more ankle and shin. Can't sustain that one for long! But what gives me endurance in that position is that I'm not engaging the leg muscles, but am using my core strength and the lean of my torso to keep the right foot in that ready-but-resting position.

Leave it to a couple of academics to over-analyze this !

The thing that's really interesting that I've been working on most recently in my lessons is how to use both the ball of the foot and the heel on the hi-hat pedal, WITHOUT lifting the ball of the foot. Damn, that's tricky! But it'll help me get more consistency in my stepped h-h sound and more speed if I can get the technique down.

I love this discussion, and hearing how you all go about it. Thanks for starting it Pluto!

[GinaSuperCat]

Hah, just checking in on the sly while at a conference (claws self)...

Pluto Boom cracks me up since in our house we have "Lioness Boom" which inpart arises from the sound of my now undampened 24" bass drum...

I wanted a Bonhamesque big ass bass drum and have been having to deal with the toms up in the heavens ever since--priorities <giggle>

All this talk about tinkering with pedals makes me want to be extra mischievous and order that DW pedal I've been dying to get for a while...the double pedal...from the conference <grin>

<Looks attentive and engaged> OK back to conference!!

[SambucaSubaru]

[quote="plutonic"]My best guess is that heel UP/Down is a false dichotomy...[/quote]


Heel up, heel down ... either one is better than toe up.


S.S.

[plutonic]

[quote="SambucaSubaru"]
[quote="plutonic"]My best guess is that heel UP/Down is a false dichotomy...
[/quote]


Heel up, heel down ... either one is better than toe up.


S.S.
[/quote]

You mean toes up, as in looking at the wrong side of the lawn, eh?

This is interesting. And bloody fast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLqP0sl8mPQ

[Laz]

...again, the key for me is relaxation... I've noticed lately that much of the time when playing straight grooves if I'm playing heel-up I'm practically dropping my leg onto the kick drum pedal, almost as if hammering a nail into the ground with my heel. I can get a rather large sound that way with no pain. Again, when playing heel-down, my leg is not at a 90 degree/right angle at the knee... it's a bit more open/my knee is not that close to the kick drum, which also keeps my shin from hurting.

I also keep my toes loose inside my shoe most of the time, though I have noticed my toes do curl up a bit when playing busier figures on the kick drum. Also, keep in mind (if you have an acoustic kit as opposed to electronic) it's good to develop both techniques - letting the beater rebound off the kick drum head for the full/open kick drum sound AND burying the beater into the kick drum head for the smaller, tighter, punchier sound... think of it as two different sounds that are both very useful and could even be combined within a groove, like hitting a drum with a stick normally and dead-sticking a drum, which would be used in many Latin and African-derived styles of music.

Laz

[Spec A!]

[quote="plutonic"][quote="SambucaSubaru"]


This is interesting. And bloody fast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLqP0sl8mPQ[/quote]


That illustrates something that's kind of hard to describe how to do. Do you see the side to side motion of the heel, pivoting on the ball of the feet? I play like that for doubles and triplets and such. Instead of trying to physically hit the pedal twice with the same up and down motion of the leg/foot, you kinda swipe it for the second hit. Hard to describe but you can see it in that video.

[plutonic]

[quote="Laz"]
...again, the key for me is relaxation... I've noticed lately that much of the time when playing straight grooves if I'm playing heel-up I'm practically dropping my leg onto the kick drum pedal, almost as if hammering a nail into the ground with my heel. I can get a rather large sound that way with no pain. Again, when playing heel-down, my leg is not at a 90 degree/right angle at the knee... it's a bit more open/my knee is not that close to the kick drum, which also keeps my shin from hurting.

I also keep my toes loose inside my shoe most of the time, though I have noticed my toes do curl up a bit when playing busier figures on the kick drum. Also, keep in mind (if you have an acoustic kit as opposed to electronic) it's good to develop both techniques - letting the beater rebound off the kick drum head for the full/open kick drum sound AND burying the beater into the kick drum head for the smaller, tighter, punchier sound... think of it as two different sounds that are both very useful and could even be combined within a groove, like hitting a drum with a stick normally and dead-sticking a drum, which would be used in many Latin and African-derived styles of music.

Laz

[/quote]

This is a great description. Thank you. Yeah, relaxation. Absolutely. Applies on every instrument.

I totally get what you are saying about both sounds BLOP and BOOM being good. (Though it makes no difference on my E kit.)

So I'm thinking to practice my single hits I need to practice kicking and then immediately relaxing to get BOOM. And then kicking and sticking for BLOP. Does that make sense?

FWIW, if any of y'all wondered why I did this now:

I started teaching a class a la "School of Rock" for my electric guitar students. It's just like that, except all the students are between 20-30. The gambit was that even for guys who'd been playing a couple years, I could play drums as well or better than they played guitar. I played a lot of drums in High School, as the drummer in my band then kept his set at my house.

After about a month of the Rock class, I realized that if I didn't practice, I wasn't going to stay ahead of the curve for long.

The best part of that class: shame is a powerful motivator. Every single person in that class is getting better faster.

I've always wanted a kit, and electronic was necessary because of my situation. However, I have the keys to the rehearsal space where I teach my class.... And I may start going over there for practice sessions. Heh heh.


[quote="Spec A!"]
[quote="plutonic"]
[quote="SambucaSubaru"]


This is interesting. And bloody fast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLqP0sl8mPQ
[/quote]


That illustrates something that's kind of hard to describe how to do. Do you see the side to side motion of the heel, pivoting on the ball of the feet? I play like that for doubles and triplets and such. Instead of trying to physically hit the pedal twice with the same up and down motion of the leg/foot, you kinda swipe it for the second hit. Hard to describe but you can see it in that video.
[/quote]

Yes! I saw that. It irked me because when he demos the heel-toe technique slowly at first, he doesn't do it. Only when he gets going does that heel start to swivel. So I couldn't figure out how to start the motion, or how exactly it works.

It's a classic example of 'bait and switch' in video instruction. They show you one technique, but don't realize they are changing the technique when they are speeding up. I've seen this a bajillion times in video guitar lessons.

Sooo.... I bet you can do better, Anthony!

Next time you are making videos, Spec A, I request a Bass drum technique demo. I've heard of two different techniques: Heel Toe and Side to Side, or slide technique.

You think you could clearly demonstrate this? I bet you'd get a bajillion Youtube Plays.

*insert begging emoticon here*

And while I'm getting greedy, why not demo some exercises that are geared to teach us Stew nutter drum newbs the basics of some classic Stewart licks. Hi Hat tricks, maybe?

*wipes drool from mouth*

I want drum lessons from you, too, Laz. I'm eyeing the center of your floortom head with awe.

Look how precise Laz hits that sucker:

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_jRIqWizuNjw/SaOQy ... CN2587.JPG

And talk about more cowbell! Yowza. Laz's got like 4 of 'em in there.

Am I high or do you have one mounted to a kick pedal below and to the left of your Hi Hat?

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_jRIqWizuNjw/SaOQW ... CN2574.JPG

[Skip]

Heels up for me, I play the hats the same.