Double bass exercises

[Xen-]

What kind of exercises would you suggest to achieve better speed, control and power with your feet besides single and double strokes? Also, do you play a backbeat with your hands while practicing them?

[Lucius]

I suggest:
*Stone Killers
*Linear exercises always work
*Mangini's C&C exercise (well thats a linear exercise anyway)

Just as long as you move the limb you want to work on, on a consistant basis, you should be fine! :D

[Mike C]

here is a good control-coordination-warmup excercise that has helped me!
play the 2-3 first pages of stick control(or just the first one)with your hands ,adding your feet as sixteenth notes in beetween. for example:
RH RF LH LF-RH RF RH RF/LH LF RH RF-LH LF LH LF
you can do it also in a crossed manner(by that i mean the left foot is following the rirght hand and the right foot is following the left hand)also don't forget to do it ina various tempos using both heel down and heel up technique.

[quitou]

Regardless of what you do, do it slowly at first.....what I did do develop some control was to play through snare drum solos with my feet....these are great because you aren't playing a consistant rhythm....your feet are forced to stop and start all the time and play a bunch of different rhythms....or linear exercises like lucius mentioned....breaking up fills in different ways between your hands and your feet....I find the toughest part about developing control with the feet is actually the stops and starts, and also when you have to play weird rhythms (not just continuous singless or doubles)....so i basically started treatng my feet like my hands (working on rudiments, snare solos, linear exercises), and it worked really well for me.

[vdreignsuponus1]

i have always been a big fan of practicing triplets on double bass. accented of course. im, farely, new to the double bass world. well, not new, but i haven't been double bassing as long as some of u guys. still, usually practice triplets (accented) and some of rod morgenstein's speed work outs.

[shaftninja]

Things I have worked on to improve--strictly--the feet :
--NARD book played with feet (accents, dynamics, more advanced strokes conjured up by myself for a challenge {ie paradiddles/LLLR/etc 16ths instead of singles})
--Double bass routine/subroutines--very meticulous, this will probably bore you all to tears, but here goes.. start at whichever BPM you are most comfortable, work singles, singles leading with the left, inverted doubles, doubles between a hand and foot (followed by the foot you did not previously work), triplet exercise (trip-a-let TWO {snare} trip-a-let FOUR--one foot), triplet exercise for the other foot (on both of these sometimes I try to accent the snare, making it four hits in a row), singles with heel down. Bump the BPM up by 10, and keep going until you burn yourself out.
--Virg's exercises that came with his MD '97 VHS
--Rudiments in general

There may have been some things I have forgotten, but follow suit with any of those tips and your feet will develop with time. Obviously, take it slow. Also, you may want to try setting up a left-handed kit configuration so you are confined to working only the left foot. This will also improve overall facility at the drumkit and make previous exercises that much easier.

[rastawes]

When my students come to me to learn double bass, I tell them to treat their left foot as though it is your right...students who learn in the beginning learn on their principle foot, so at that very moment the dominant foot takes the advantage...equality in the feet is a difficult thing to achieve, even more so if the player has years of playing with one foot being dominant...One way that work on equal feet is play the same basic rhythms that I play with my right foot with my left...I use a cable hat to right side of my right bass drum pedal...so I use my right foot on the cable hat and play all the bass drum rhythms with my left...start out with some basic rock beats or hip hop beats(due to their repetition) to work on comfortability...

best wishes to all

[peter]

I think that the most important thing for me
is to actually fit double-kick patterns into tunes
that I am actively working on. Lately, I have
been trying to do this more and more.

These are two tunes that have single-stroke
applications, that I purposefully stuck them in
and in genre, not normally associated with it.

www.thediametrixletter.com/olgamiguaganco8.mp3
www.thediametrixletter.com/asieslavida5.mp3

It's becoming easier but for control, I am still
heel-down on these.