Beating the Bass Drum

Although some people play the bass drum with their heel down, the vast majority of drummers nowadays have their heel up. The heel-up position allows you to play faster, louder, and longer (don't worry n you can still play softly with the heel up, too).

To make the bass drum stroke, lift your knee and drop your foot into the pedal. If you apply a little forward pressure as you push down on the pedal you get a solid sound. Most of the time, you want the pedal's beater to bounce off the head of the drum so that it can ring freely.

As you get comfortable playing the bass drum and get a few grooves under your belt, you'll probably want to play some double strokes. Here's where the heel-up position comes in real handy. With it you can play double strokes with very little effort.

So, to play the double stroke, play the first stroke on your toes with your heel way up. Then drop your heel and move your foot forward slightly. Kick lightly into the drum. To do triple or quadruple strokes, repeat the first stroke position (heel stays up and foot stays back) for all but the last stroke (heel comes down and foot moves forward).