The Topic: Heel-Up Doubles Recently, I’ve been working with a lot of students on a heel-up technique for playing two notes in a row–quickly–with a single bass drum pedal. This technique is an essential skill and will enable you to play a lot of great grooves as well as fills that incorporate the bass drum. […]

I’ve been using Charles Dowd’s “The Funky Primer for the rock drummer” with students for a while now. Great book for rock independence. The first independence section in the book, “Section 3A,” is simply four pages of eighth note bass drum variations versus the “standard” rock/pop ostinato of eighth notes on the cymbal and two […]

A while back I posted a sheet of eighth note rock beats. The original sheet, simply called “Eighth Note Rock Beats,” was just a baker’s dozen of beats….many of which I still use to this day in my rock playing. It doesn’t have to be complex to be good! Eighth note rock beats are the […]

The follow up to “The Ladder” Part One? You guessed it. Part Two. In this version of The Ladder—a single stroke roll exercise we introduced last week—we add 16th note triplets to the mix. It’s good for your rhythmic control and it’s important to develop a triplet roll as well as an eighth note/16th note […]