Nicko Mcbrain's bass drum speed

[Ziimo]

How does he play so fast with only one pedal?

[k1neta]

practice

[djarrett]

Zimmo:

I have relayed this story before, but I always think it befitting about bass drum speed.

 

Back in the late 1970's there was a concert with the dualing drummers Louis Bellison and Buddy Rich. During the concert ... Louis Bellison (who almost always used double bass drums) broke out into a long fast roll with his feet on the bass drum pedals. Upon completing this amazingly fast double bass drum roll, ... he looked over at Buddy (as if to gloat). Buddy then blistered Louis using one bass drum pedal! The crowd went wild!

 

Fast feet come from conditioning!

Use Stone Stick Control and practice the exercises with your feet!!

DJ

[keyd]

There is also a way you can expand your single bass drum playing by experimenting with a different technique.

 

I have always been able to do "flams" with my single bass drum pedal and sound clean. "Flams" may not be the correct term. What I mean is that with one foot stroke I could make the beater bounce and hit twice (very clean and very fast). Sounds just like double bass. Whenever we would sound check I would start doing doublebass stuff with one pedal and many times drummers would corner me after the show and ask me how I did it.

 

My wife (girlfriend back then) would sometimes come to shows and be in the audience. Once she was sitting behind two drummers in the crowd and overheard them going on and on about how the stuff I was doing was impossible with a single pedal and how I had to have some kind of trigger or something.

 

It's really hard for me to explain as I'm not a teacher but I'll try...

 

First I never wore shoes as it made it a lot harder to do.

 

Second it is a lot easier to do it on older pedals. I always had problems with newer chain pedals for some reason. My pedals were the old Gretsch "floating pedal" (leather strap) and the old slingerland one (metal connecter).

 

You start with the heel of your foot on the way down and then rock the front of your foot down and forward while pulling your heel back up. (this is all one smooth motion) It is like tieing your shoes once you learn it. Getting the motion right is the hardest thing.

 

When I teach people how to do it I get a floor tom and tighten the head down pretty tight. Then I tighten the springs on the pedal so as soon as the beater hits the head it bounces back hard. Then I hook the pedal up to the floor tom.

 

The reason I set it up like that is because you can't help but do it if your foot motion is close.

 

Usually drummers can pick it up in 5 minutes if they can watch my foot motion. After 20 minutes they start loosening the floor tom head. Then they can move to a normal Bass drum with a tighter head. After that they just loosen their bass head everyday until they are back where they normally are. They can also back off on the pedal a little.

 

Once you are at this point you can start adding some really cool funky stuff into beats and you can do quad rolls with only one pedal! (bass-bass-tom-tom)

 

If this didn't make any sense or is common knowledge now, sorry. I never ran into drummers who could do it back when I was playing and thought I'd share.