Most of us think of the heel-down bass drum pedal motion as reserved for Jazz and other softer playing situations. However, most of us don't realize we're utilizing this heel-down motion when we are performing louder heel-up motions. Therefore, it's important to have the heel-down motion under control.
A quick overview of each method.
(If you already know of these two methods, feel free to skip these paragraphs.)
Heel-Down:
To perform this motion correctly, you must have your heel planted on the heel plate of the pedal at all times. Striking the bass drum head, thus, requires you to raise the rest of your foot and snap downward. The advantage to this is having maximum control over the bass pedal. The disadvantage is the lack of power you get with this smaller muscle mass.
If you're not sure if you're playing heel-down, a quick test: If your knee does NOT move up and down with each lift of your foot, you are indeed playing heel-down.
Heel-Up:
To perform this motion correctly, your entire foot lifts to strike the bass drum. The ball of your foot , however, will always remain in contact with the pedal board. If not, you will be slapping your foot against the pedal board with each strike while wasting energy and control.
If you're not sure if you're playing heel-up, a quick test: If your knee moves up and down with each lift of your foot, you are indeed playing heel-up.
SOLUTION:
When we perform two bass drum notes quickly, we mostly use a heel-down motion for the first note and a heel-up motion for the second. (Some of us do the opposite: heel-up for the first note and heel-down for the second however we are still using both motions.)
If you were to watch a slow-motion video of your foot performing these two notes, you would notice that even though your heel is up for the first strike, it's actually and heel down motion. The only difference is you're holding your foot up while you do this. This motion is indeed heel-down.
If we want to get control, speed and power with our bass drum foot (or feet) it would be highly recommended practicing heel-down.
This can be achieved by either isolating your bass drum foot (only playing the bass drum) and performing simple quarter note / eighth note rhythms increasing the tempo as needed. Or simply play a few of your favorite drum set rhythms while using heel-down on your bass drum.
THOUGHTS:
I've been a professional drummer for over 25 years and when I started practicing the heel-down motion daily, I saw massive results in bass drum control, speed and power even though I rarely perform heel-down.
Within a week of 20 min of heel-down effort, my speed, control and power of my heel-up motions doubled!
I've never had an exercise yield such quick results.
This was incredible for me and is also why I am giving you this information. I truly hope you'll spend some time working with the heel-down motion. Again, it has been the best thing I've ever done for my overall bass drum control.
Go to your drum set and play any of your favorite rhythms that include the bass drum. Perform heel-down and this will improve your heel-up playing enormously. It did for me.
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