Left foot technique

phantompong · Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 11:09 am Post subject: Left foot technique

I've stopped my drum lessons - today was my last lesson (I typed an explanation but deleted it - ask if you want) and I took a technique book to my lesson today to revise some left foot work we covered a long while ago, in Sept '06 to be exact... and I discovered that my left foot is still as terrible as ever.

The main thing was that I couldn't keep good time (I speed up) for more than four bars, and even then by the end I was barely holding it together. I'm wondering if this is a technique problem - am I stomping down, because my clutch is slipping (the answer, I suspect, is yes) and how do I fix that, should I heel up or heel down or both and how do I strengthen those muscles? Is it a matter of playing through the wall, like it is with the right foot when you first start out and it hurts like nothing on earth but after a while it's okay?
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edgewood_drummer92 · Bear Joined: 16 Feb 2007 Posts: 657

Just practice man. What I do is mostly heel up, but just mess around with a metronome making up beats while keeping time with your left foot, this helped me, but I didn't use a metronome. If you have a double bass pedal, than that should help with the muscle issue, but if you don't then to build up the muscle just use your left foot more. Hope this helps.
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Rasta · Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 7:35 am Post subject: