Strange Journey to Double Bass

[Flint]

I think I mentioned before, playing RLL RLL patterns with my feet. That was between my bass drum and high hat pedal, or alternately a LP Gajate bracket with a Jam Block attached (Boom Clock! Clock! Boom Clock! Clock!). Other than that, I’ve used my left foot for in-between accents, or for little stepped notes vs. ghost notes on the snare (quick left foot/left hand “rolls” – a Bozzio trick I picked up). But, more or less, my left foot is the least coordinated part of my body (that’s why I’m always pushing it to do new things).

A few weeks ago, I got that old itch again: “Hey, I really should practice double bass, I could do some cool things if I got my feet evened out.” So I pulled my cheapo Pacific double pedals out of the garage and set up a bass drum, snare, and throne. I quickly lost interest, as my dumb-ass left foot couldn’t stay straight.

So I did something else I’ve been wanting to do. I dismantled the right pedal assembly on the double pedal to make a left-pedal triggered remote pedal. I played around with putting some remote bass drums off to the right, but all my bass drums are 22” (I would like a huge 40” or something over there, but that’s another story). So I wondered: what could I attach to that remote pedal? How about that Gajate bracket? But what do I put on it? How about my new strike-able tambourine? So now I had a remote-access, foot-triggered tambourine. I pretty soon settled on placing this just inside my high-hat pedal and having an alternate left-foot triggered “time” sound.

Now I began practicing playing straight 8ths with my left foot, trying to determine if I could play a valid tambourine “part” with my weak limb, while freeing up my stronger right arm for accents. Using the heel momentum from my RLL pattern I pretty quickly worked out straight 8ths, using LLL as a familiar building block; and then began working on endurance and consistency.

Now playing straight 8ths with my weak left foot, I began to wonder if I could translate this into double bass. The only problem is that my left foot is playing the right foot part, and needs to play the other half of the 16th. At this point I began playing 16ths with my hands on a fixed high-hat, stepping the 8ths with my left foot on my main high-hat pedal, and then moving my right hand off the 8ths; now I had my left foot and left hand playing straight 16ths (not just short bursts of accents). This is very fun, as my stronger right hand and right foot can now solo on top of 16ths.

But, back to the double bass: I figured, I have the mechanics of the left foot 8ths pretty well in place now, I just need to shift them to the other side of the 16th. So I set up another double-bass set up (bass, snare, and fixed high-hat) – this is now about a few weeks later, in the meantime I’ve been doing all the above experimentation. I sat down, and I found that almost instantly I could utilize my left foot’s new-found coordination in double bass patterns; playing them smoother and stronger than I had ever been able to before. Now it’s just a matter of endurance work (I cranked the spring tension up so I have to muscle the notes) and practicing with a metronome, so I don’t get stuck in a “comfort zone” tempo-wise (it’s easier to play faster, to a certain point).

For whoever cares (maybe you’re reading this out of boredom) this is the struggle I have to overcome mental blocks and make progress – I never know how I will arrive at a destination, I just experiment constantly until things I never expected to happen just seem to fall in my lap. For better or worse, my subconscious mind springs these creative surprises on me; I’ve learned to just relax and try to follow the path that feels natural (see: Bozzio signature).