Left Foot Co-ordination Exercises and developing a funky foot!!

by Rob Gordon http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com

If you are like the majority of drummers I guess you'll will find that you play predominately with your hands and your right foot on the kick and a bit of left foot working the hi-hat on 2 and 4?

Well as I was jamming away to Mellowship Slinky in B Major in Chad Smiths Red Hot Rhythm book, not very well I might add because my left foot wasn't work working very well. I then stopped and starting thinking of exercises to get my left foot going more freely.

Unfortunately, this is not a 5 minute exercise, but what is in drumming, though I am glad that with me and drumming if I work at something I start to get dividends within a couple of weeks.

Being a rock and pop fan, most of the music I listen to and play along with has the standard kick on 1 and 3 and snare on 2 and 4, so just out of laziness I tap my left foot to the 2 and 4.

Well Chad doesn't do that he uses his left foot all over the place and in a very syncopated way too.

He has learnt to free up his left foot and so he can place it where he likes. Well that is what makes him a world class drummer!!!!.

So as I am generally a big fan of using rudiments to get you to use you hands and feet in patterns and ways that you generally will not do, when play rock and pop music.

I got thinking about playing a paradiddle with my feet on the main beats of 123 and 4 and this will resolve over 2 measures of 4/4 time as follows

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

R L R R L R L L

Now once you get that going the next thing to do is get you hand doing a normal right hand on the hi-hat on 123 and 4 and left hand snare on 2 and 4.

Now that feels weird doesn't' it.

Well it will as you have started a learning experience.

What this is teaching you is a breaking down of the normal feel of left foot and left hand working together on 2 and your right foot working on 1 2 3 and 4 and predominately on 1 and 3

Many teaches and books call these interdependence exercises.

The next left foot exercise to have you developed a more funky left foot is to play a 16th note beat "1 er and eh" (See my counting out the beat article if you are not happy with beat counting ) with your left foot only. This is a strengthen exercise to get you to use the muscles in your left leg more.

Next (and I have to be honest and say I got a lot of this from Zoro's great book The Commandments of R&B Drumming: A Comprehensive Guide to Soul, Funk and Hip Hop. Click here to read my review of this fantastic book) is to play the 16th notes er and the eh with you left foot.

How did I start to learn this to start with ? Firstly very slowly!!

Start off with a very slow 16th note single stroke roll with your hand i.e. R L R L and count "1 er and eh 2 er and eh 3 er and eh 4 er and eh"

Now when you you count "1"and stoke with you right hand at the same time lift your left foot up (so it is ready to play the next count), then as you count "er" and strike with your left hand push your left foot down. And so on.

The next variation of this is to play an 8th note single stroke roll counting "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" but continue to play the 16th notes "er" and "eh" with you left foot.

Next you can start to develop other sticking patterns e.g. RRLL RLRR LRLL over your now hopefully constant hi hat opening on the "1" and closing on the "er " giving you a 16th note flow of hi-hat opening and closing.

Start this very very slow as always. After some practice this will start to feel easier and more loose. You will actually be starting to develop a skill which 1) lots of drummers can't do cause they are too lazy and 2) will hugely enable you to spice up and very importantly funk up your drumming.

Some of the greatest drum grooves from James Brown's drummers e.g. John "Jabo" Starbo and Clyde Stubblefield and from the era of funk, opened and closed the hi-hat on or very close to 16ths'.

Go listen to Cold Sweat, Funky Drummer, Get up I feel like a Sex Machine. All these grooves have funky use of the left foot. And when you think these grooves are some of the most sampled in the world of music I hope you can appreciate the importance of learning to funk up your left foot. So that is what I call a reason to practice!!!!

Lastly and I hope obviously, if you have read my other articles, go play along to your favorite music, use it in fills and throw in this new learned ability to your groove.

Just go and have fun with it!!!

As always if you have any comments pls email me rob@learn-to-play-drums.com but please put the text "Not spam:" in your subject line first to help me sort the spam from your mail

Take Care and happy drumming

Regards

Rob