House of Drumming.com

Hi guys,

I posted this question in weekend chatty and got unnoticed and since the chatty will get deleted today, I thought I might post it here then.

How do you play your bass drum samba doubles? Heel up or down? If playing heel up, what do you do when playing a 18 inches (or bigger) open bass drum, with no muffling? I've been messing with this lately. I played my whole life with the heel up and nowadays, I play heel down quite a lot and was curious to have your views on that.

Here's John RIley playing heel down, he's one of the guys playing really good heel down JR Robinson also plays really good heel down.

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/johnrileyheadroom2.html

Any thoughts, experiences?

Thanks!

I always play heel up unless playing at a quiet dynamic level. It's difficult if the drum has no muffling due to the bouncing of the beater on the head. You have to let the beater bounce off the head immediately, but it's not always possible, so you may sometimes get a tiny bit of flutter. I prefer to dampen the head a bit from the inside with a towel. With no port hole on the front, you still get a very nice tone.

Nothing wrong with heel down, but I just don't get the same volume/feel with it. The nice thing about it is that you are "grounded" and can balance off of it like a pivot point.

Virgil plays his inverted doubles (and everything else on the bd) heel up. The inverted double is the samba double.
If you have a drumchannel membership, you can hear/see him play it and explain it to some degree here: http://www.drumchannel.com/articles/Liv ... homas_Lang
(about 30 minutes in)

Thanks guys, I'll definitely check that link on Drum Channel (I'm a member, might as well use it).

The tricky thing for me is actually playing the doubles (or triples or whatever) at a very quiet volume. My leg tends to get tired after a while.

if you are a DC member, check out Mike Packers section on foot technique as well!
this technique works, even on an open sounding bass drum with no muffling!

That's a really cool groove, thanks for sharing. I think I had seen Steve Smith play that when he did his tribute to the Jazz Greats. And we get to see him him play flat footed. Or what appears to be.