Both of these guys modestly play down the fact that they have mastered both techniques and can use either one as needed. That's the hard way and the right way.
The "right" way? That's a big claim in itself. It took a while, but I worked out how to orient my leg for heel down, which involves several variables, so that I get the thigh muscle advantage of heel up and the subtlety of heel down, and I've had no problems with it since, it just keeps getting better. Anyone else who tried my way of heel down, might, for example, find they have trouble with their reach, which I don't. The fact is that there is no single "right way", because we're all physiologically different. Nate is still basically just saying, that heel up is better than heel down, and that may be true for him, but anyone chasing anyone else's ideal has a significant chance of getting lost up a blind alley.
I play heel up, but at rest, my foot is heel down. If I'm playing successive notes, my heel stays up until the last note where I land with the heel down. I don't bury the beater. Because I land the last note, or single notes at slow tempos, with my heel coming to rest flat on the pedal, I can easily let the beater come off the head. Back when I used to keep my heel up and bury the beater, I always had a problem with tension in my foot and leg. When I learned this new technique, I found that letting my heel rest on the pedal naturally released the tension in my leg. And I still get the power of the heel up position, often using the weight of my leg to generate the stroke. I learned this technique from an article in Modern Drummer quite a few years ago. I'm sorry to say that I don't remember the drummer who wrote the article. I've seen clips of Jojo Meyer using this technique. It's kind of a variation of heel/ toe technique, except one starts with the toe and then the heel. I'm currently working on the slide technique, which is pretty much the same thing, except it incorporates the forward movement of the lower leg. I do need to work on playing heel down as it would improve the use of my ankle when playing faster or lighter strokes. But I find it quite difficult. My leg gets tired rather quickly, and I find that the tension in my calf starts to set in. I haven't yet found a way to release that tension. Dom Famularo suggested that even heel up players should practice playing the heel down technique, as it improves overall facility in playing fast notes. I've watched his feet while he played some pretty fast double pedal rolls, and his feet look like they are barely moving. So he had really mastered the concept of economy of motion and letting the rebound of the beaters do the work. It's so sad that he's gone.
The key is to learn both and be interchangeable and fluent. I can play both and everything in between. Not being a smartarse but I learned mostly from the jo jo Mayer DVD, it illustrates the importance of control and dynamics using many techniques.
Absolutely! Just like whenever I see a discussion about "French, German, or American grip?", I think "yes?". I permanently switch depending on instrument and body position towards the instrument. It's super efficient and I only scratched the surface of it. I even found that practicing traditional grip gives me a massive control boost in match. Know your instrument like you know your body.
heel up/ heel down is just a dynamic change for me. more often than not i'm not playing anything to complex quietly, so heel down does the job. typically anything complex or fast i'm heel up. similar to how i choke up on the sticks to play quieter, and then have them nearly out of my hands to really dig in and crush notes. it's just a matter of using physics to achieve your goal.
Forward shin angle! You're my favorite source for well explained esoteric drum knowledge but I think you left out what I think is one of the most important parts of heel up: Sitting far enough away that your shin is pointing diagonally from your knee to ankle
I appreciate you making this video. Your previous videos declaring heel up as the one and only method, made it really hard for me to take you seriously as a teacher. The real answer to heal up or heal down which you seem to have arrived at in this video is "it depends". For me, I started playing heal up but have always adjusted the spring tension so I don't bury the beater. I was also mostly playing rock, punk, and funk in those early days. Power, and especially powerful doubles and triples come easier heal up. As I started playing more jazz and as I started playing at more jazz jams on other people's equipment, one thing I ran into was pedals with much less spring tension than I was used to, and un-ported reso heads. If I played heal up I would unintentionally bury the beater, and the beater would flub and bounce around off the head. I felt like I had no control of my foot playing heal up in these conditions. I started playing heal down and this fixed a lot of those issues. Having the heal planted gave me a lot more fine grain control. I can play softer and more precise without depending on specific spring tension or rebound feel of the batter head. And of course now I play a mix of both. If I need more power or ultimate double speed I'll likely play heal up. If I need to play quiet or if the pedal/bass feel is too far from what I'm used to I'll play heal down.
Thanks Nate and Tim for taking the time to analyse this technique! Although I'll admit, I'm more used to heel down technique, for the first time ever I experienced a bit of fatigue in playing loud and fast on a piece I was playing, so I won't rule out playing heel up from now on ocassionally to get used to it. I would just go on to say, as a professional drummer, when a drummer is comfortable and used to playing heel up or heel down, whatever you are most comfortable at, predominantly stick with I would say. However, like me don't be afraid to swap to the other technique should the need and circumstances dictate, particularly for the sake of health and safety and avoiding repetitive strain injury! Comfort and heath, go a long way to a long and good career on drums, so don't be afraid to have good comfortable posture at all times! Hope this helps, God bless!
I feel like the heel up vs heel down debate is like debating between playing with your wrist vs using your entire forearm. There are obviously reasons for using/learning both. There are no wrong answers. What works for you might not work for someone else. Everyone's physical comfort is different
are there zero other criteria beyond that? What if the drummer is stuck in a local optimum because they don't know what they're missing? What if they have no sense of "what it's supposed to feel like" so they assume tension or technical limitations are inherent rather than artifacts or limitations of the technique. "feels best" compared to what? I'm critical of these kneejerk "whatever works best" comments, because I think they're very easy to say, but ignore a lot of important details.
@@8020drummer I hear ya…there is certainly much to explore and work on. Limiting oneself because you don’t want to get out of a comfort zone is no way to advance. Also, the heel down techniques seems to particularly work well with certain approaches to bass drumming. I had a teacher who insisted I played heel down and it literally hurt my feet. Perhaps I could have soldiered through it but it seemed like heel up worked for what I wanted out of the drums . Maybe I am missing out.
Thanks, Nate! Your vids are great to keep me in practice and advancing in skill as I search for a way to get the space to set up my kit again in between bands. In sitting in chair tapping feet and slapping thighs practice I've found that heel down works for a lot of pop, reggae, jazz, funk if it's not too heavy. Then I've been training hard rock and heavy metal, or in the case of Black Sabbath they're almost a heavy bebop band. For powerful and fast one foot things like John Bonham and Bill Ward I just can't keep my heel down and get all the beats to come through. I find that for those kind of beats like in Paranoid or Good Times Bad Times the constant 8th notes don't come through without my whole foot free to move and my thigh muscles able to add the oomph to project that kick beyond the roaring row of speaker towers and full tube amps on either side of the kit. Same thing for any hip hop with excessive kick bumps. To get the freedom to bounce I got to lift my heel. If it's only jazz, I still instinctively lift heel for occasional accents.
I've played heel down my whole life. It has just always felt more comfortable. In the last couple years I have started working on heel up for some stuff, but I feel like I am on a tight rope with no balance. Like you said Nate, it will take some time to feel comfortable. At this stage of my life I have nothing but time to have fun and challenge myself to learn both. Thanks for another great video.
Whatever works best for the individual. You definitely made the point about playing softer styles with the heel down. I've met drummers who were freaks about "Releasing" EVERY time the beater hits the head. . . . . . . . . Of course these same guys knew nothing, about tuning. Personally I'm a P3 heel up kinda guy. There's truly something to be said for an instrument, that you hit! Plain ole' therapeutic!
As always, you do a good job exploring the nuances of this kind of topic. To me, asking whether you should use heel-up or heel-down, is a bit like asking whether you should use your fingers, wrists, or forearms. It just seems to me that the must useful answer is to learn all of the techniques & combine them as necessary. Specifically, check out "Secret Weapons Part 2: A Guide to Foot Technique" by Jojo Mayer. The combined motions are what I would call Moeller for your feet.
Ive only been drumming a few months, but it seems like both are useful. Im currenly studying jazz, and heel up feathering just seems unnecessarily hard.
Great video Nate! I play heel up and as I want not to bury the beater, I just let my heel rest after the stroke (when there are not too much) and that makes the beater come off the head. It doesn't make sense to me to let the heels always up when I'm not moving my feet.
There is a great Vinnie Colaiuta video out there where hes doing both, as well as Tony Williams and Steve Gadd. The Vinnie video is from a Kimo Williams session where he's rehearsing and playing heel down but when they do a take he's playing heel up. Both with supreme control. I've seen the same with Larnell.
When I started as a self-taught cave man rock drummer, I went with heel up, off the head. I had to correct the unintentional extra hits, but that wasn't difficult, and I don't even remember how I did that. The only difficulties have been playing quietly (have recently sorted that out with practice) and keeping balance. I also prefer the sound of rock drummers playing heel up. Maybe the leg movement translates to a little extra drive to the sound. I could see though if playing primarily quiet music, heel down would be a good starting point.
Thanks Nate. As a drummer and as a teacher, I recommend doing both, and work on transition. Did you ever heard about the so called constant/release motion? In one word. I vote for hybrid 😊
If you are going to rate heel down against heel up, then you should be doing it with correct heel down technique. Around 12:15, you trial heel down, playing hard and rapid beats, but you're not using heel down technique correctly. Your lower leg is vertical and that's why your shin ends up burning. When playing heel down, the physics of the leg requires that your knee is further away from the kit than your ankle which creates a machine out of your foot, ankle joint, lower and upper leg bones, and knee joint, that enables you to use your upper leg muscles to drive the lower part of your leg turning your foot around your ankle to pound as heavily as you need on the pedal without burning your shin. You say earlier in the video that heel down is difficult up close and there you came near to the truth because the physics cannot then be applied. In contrast, heel up works best when the lower leg is vertical, when the reverse, of sitting too far away from the kit, makes it almost impossible. Because of my particular physiology, I've always been heel down and I had all kinds of trouble with it until I figured out the proper physics required and how to apply it. Leg and arm length affects this as well. I have extra long arms and need to sit further back in my kit, so correct heel down works very well for me, because luckily, my legs are long enough to make it work very comfortably. If your physiology is different, you may need another solution, but physiology cannot be discounted. The big problem for me would remain, if I was stuck being too close to the bass drum, but I'm not and will move heaven and earth for that to never be an issue. I produce my own music in my own studio and it's all set up to suit me. I've had other drummers come in to have all kinds of difficulty with my set up and yes they all had different physiologies to mine. Maybe your physiology is ideally suited to heel up. I follow your channel, because you are generally more unbiased than most, but in this case you're not. The issue of physiology cannot be sidestepped.
I think I caveat and call out everything you mention here. The detail you’re missing in your comment is that I played heel down for over 15 years. Do you think I just neglected to find the ideal setup that whole time? ;)
@@8020drummer So why not point out and demonstrate that ideal in this comparison? That's my point, that you're not comparing them fairly in this video. Nowhere in this video do you explicitly mention the physiology of heel down: lower leg angled away from the bass drum and upper leg angled down towards the knee. I've not seen a proper description of heel down in any of your videos - maybe I just missed it - but it should be in this one. I'm just as enthusiastic about heel down as you are about heel up, for the reasons mentioned in my comment above. And, of course you would have tried to find the ideal setup for heel down when you were using it, but it just may be that it doesn't suit your physiology. Which doesn't mean it won't suit anyone else's.
@@Turbulator I’m pretty sure I mention all of those trade offs in the “tick tack toe” section. Bottom line: I can guarantee the limitations I experienced in the side by side comparison weren’t because of setup. Despite appearances, I felt comfortable with the setup.
@@8020drummer There is one issue you keep sidestepping. I just checked out the “tick tack toe” section to be clear, and at 13:32 you say for heel down playing louder, that you get shin splints and fatigue, which is not true if you orient your leg correctly and are able to use your upper leg to drive. At 17:05 when you play heel down you can clearly see that your shin is vertical, maybe even slightly angled towards the bass drum. That's shin splint city, where the upper leg, physically cannot drive. My knee is 11cm behind my shin, which is at an angle of 13 degrees away from the bass drum. My Knee is 9cm below the top of my thigh, which is angled down towards the bass drum at an angle of 11 degrees. It's important to note that with my leg like that, heel up is impossible to do comfortably. To compare heel up I can't just move my seat closer, the knock on involves rearranging my entire kit. So a choice does have to be made. You can't use both fully and easily from the same setup, like some have suggested is the "correct way", so I have maximised my heel down setup which works very well for me and it also turns out that the bonus is that I much prefer the arrangement of the pieces of my kit around me which that allows. To be fair to you, you have the opposite, a kit set up maximised for heel up, in which you can't just move away to demonstrate heel down, because then everything else in your kit has moved further away. A proper comparison could be done with you doing heel up on your kit, with another drummer who uses heel down on their kit. I do realise you compared notes with another drummer in this video, but more shots of his leg and foot playing the kick drum would provide a better comparison. You say it yourself, because heel up really suits you and you've been playing it for some time, you've worked out strategies to get around the supposed limitations. That applies equally to someone for whom heel down really suits and has similarly ironed out the supposed limitations. I want to see the “tick tack toe” that compares those two people. And I know you had the two methods pretty close at the end of your video, but I still get the impression you believe heel up is better.
Good content as usual! Another benefit of heel down is easier balance, particularly when playing patterns between both feet.. which leads to the next question - hihat heel up/down/both? A good working grasp of a wide range of techniques will usually be ideal.
That one is easy, there is no way that you can get a tight chick sound without playing heel-up and putting the weight of your leg on it. But for hihat openings: heel-down!
Great video, I have long struggled with foot control. As usual, you bring up some great points. I think every drummer should practice to gain at least some proficiency in both techniques. Setup preferences, individual anatomy and genre dynamics are going to determine what technique functions better for the individual drummer. I used to get knee pain and back pain from strictly playing heel down even when burying the beater, with my power / volume coming from pulling up / back with the hip flexors and then pushing out / down with the quads. But I also sat too low and far away from the drum set (actually started off for a while playing while sitting on my bed, so I had to put the bass drum pretty far away to be able to fit a floor tom). I usually played either barefoot or with socks on. Getting back into drumming after a long break, I'm sitting higher up and closer to the kit now, always wearing shoes, and using what I would call a non-floating heel up technique. Or would I call it a non-planted heel down technique? Either way, my heel isn't glued to the pedal's heel plate, though it often ends up resting there. For power, I "snap" the pedal (bass drum or hi-hat) down with the calves and / or glutes, and play with much less fatigue. I think Tim's remark regarding one's balance being dependent on a certain technique is maybe the key point to keep in mind with all this. And what about the hi-hat foot? It seems like most players that aren't exclusively playing rock or metal keep the left heel down as a sort of anchor point much of the time. Btw, to my eyes, it looks like your heel is still lifting up at times in your heel-down examples, like at 12:28
I just switch in between both techniques constantly, especially due to the dynamics of the music I play. Just like how metal drummers change their double bass playing style based on tempo while keeping a desired level of dynamics and control. Sometimes throwing a little swivel into my jazz kick double strokes works great too. So much kinda unseen carryover between genres, even at the extremes.
I play what I'd call a hybrid heel up/heel down. My heal doesn't go into the up position until I'm ready to strike the drum, and I never bury the beater. What may be missing from this conversation is where your foot is on the kick pedal. I tend to play in the middle of the pedal most of the time, and I can move my foot further back for less power if need be.
I've used heel down for 53 years. When playing heel down my spring is pretty loose. The reason for this is that I use bounce like you use with sticks. At times I use rebound off the bass drum head. I never bury my beater into the head. If I want to play really loud I will slightly raise my heel or possibly the whole foot to get big loud strokes. Even though I play heel down my foot needs to be able to move or slide on the foot board to get doubles. Heel down absolutely works, and you're not going to get shin splints. With some practice you can get a loud bass drum sound with heel down. But this isn't the only technique to use on the bass drum.
Nate, an opinion, the Burying the beater or not burying work like the Sticks, when you hit the head with the beater, you have to push it with the pedal but not keeping the beater into the head and then losing the tension, its must act like a drumstick, it should rebound on the head and stay away. sorry for my bad english.
I switch styles whenever needed, it depends on what i need to bring out of the bassdrum, and of my kit as a whole, depending on the piece of music i'm playing.
Another wonderful video from you. Nathaniel you are the best drummer of all time. All of your earth shattering live performances should be recorded for eternity. Above all, your ability to deal with criticism of your statements is incomparably good. The world needs judges like you like air to breathe. It's so sad that drummers dare to release something without asking your opinion first. Even Gadd could learn from you.
What would you have recommended, besides inviting Tim on the channel for a convo, making a video highlighting both our sides, showing that video to him before publishing it and getting a big thumbs up, then publishing the entire interview? Seems like one of us has trouble dealing with critiques of their cherished beliefs, and I don’t think it’s me. Would love an answer to my question but not holding out much hope.
@@8020drummer That was just my honest, personal, positive opinion. Did I write something wrong? Then I would like to sincerely apologize. Feel free to moderate my potentially inappropriate comment.
@@8020drummer I see my mistake now. My comment related more to your entire work. As for your question, I don't want to be so presumptuous as to recommend anything to you. You're far too superior to me for that.
@@F-YT-comments-censorship well you apparently thought you had standing to leave a snarky comment in the first place so why quit when I ask a clarifying question. Seems like your willingness to engage depends on whether you have anything of substance to say or want to hide
There's another issue to consider here which has to do with back issues. Some muscles used for heel up vs down are clearly different. I have lower back issues and find that lower back fatigue is exacerbated by heel up. My preference would be to be comfortable with both techniques and switch to whatever is appropriate at any given time, but my back says, "No you don't." So I play about 95 percent heel down and switch to heel up only for certain situations. Sometimes that might be just for the bridge of a song, or whatever. BTW, I do a lot of ballroom dance gigs and I find feathering to be much easier with heel down.
because i started with heel down due to noise levels it was many years later i had to re learn heel up..........i also now angle my foot to ( 1 o'clock) because that bone / tendon on the lower shin...stops me from playing easily
As a metal drummer who recently joined an acoustic pop band, there was a steep learning curve in dynamics, and I noticed that the more I get comfortable with the style of playing, the more my heel up/heel-toe techniques stick out like a sore thumb and get in the way. Definitely gonna grind heel down.
I'm not a pro by any means, mostly play at home cause I've always loved drumming. Started out heel down, and I've been that way for a couple of decades, but I'm also a metal fan and that requires high bpm double bass for the most part. I wish I had at least sometimes worked on heel up, it's so hard to get it down good after doing heel down for so long. I'm still mightily struggling trying to find the right spot where it feels anywhere near as comfortable as heel down does to me, but I've reached my max heel down speed and heel up is the only way to get faster. Control is almost non-existent, but I don't know if it's me, my pedal settings, or a combo of the two. I wish I still had teenager-levels of free time to figure it out. I even bought some really nice overpriced pedals(the machined dw's), and it has helped a little, but not as much as I had hoped. Sometimes I think I need heavier springs on them, but I can't seem to find any for that specific pedal, so that's why I tend to think it's just me. Matt Gartska doesn't seem to have a problem using them. 😅
I always end up using both, even though the same song, just because it gives my leg a rest with the heel down. Plus, my technique has kind of evolved to where I bounce the beater off of the head, rather than “burying” it
Saying which is better between heal up vs heal down is like matched vs traditional grip; French vs German grip, they are all valid depending on the application. Not only should a drummer learn them all but also learn to switch between them on the fly.
In my opinion, no one technique is right for every situation. Like in our hands, we wouldn't JUST use wrist or JUST use fingers. It depends on the note speed and dynamics and context. I play rock and funk and church gigs mostly heel up, where jazz and Brazilian and stuff is mostly heel down. but my resting point is sort of a hybrid. My heel is down but it's not really bearing the weight of my leg. So I treat it like a hand and do whatever needs to be done to get whatever sound I'm looking for. A good example is I'll use heel up for double then go back into heel down for bass feathering and lighter comping.
Another interesting aspect of pedal control is not letting the beater go beyond 90 degrees. I noticed that Nate lets it go beyond 90 degrees which to me stretches the pedal beyond its optimal playing angle. I do not keep my bass drum flat because of this and I believe that it makes the beater hit the head at a weird angle, kind of like skidding into the head. Ultimately drummers should learn both heel up and down as they both have their benefits depending on what is being played.
As a kid who's favorite drummers were all rock/metal guys all the videos I saw were them playing heal up, so of course that's exactly what I wanted to do. Luckily as soon as I got my first kit I started taking lessons with a teacher who is a Jazz drummer. He made me go heal down and I'm thankful he did. Of course I played heel up outside of my lessons but would switch it up depending on what I was playing. So in my opinion the correct answer is both. But.....and I'm going to get judgemental here.... I think for beginners they should probably start heal down as it's much easier to learn bounce that way. And I really think burying the beater is a very bad habit. To paraphrase Tommy Igoe in one of his videos (talking about flams), if you're burying the beater because that's the sound you're going for, then fine, but if you're burying the beater because you don't know how to bounce, then that's a technique issue and you need to practice. Burying the beater is just bad technique. Especially if your bass drum is any kind of resonant. I think in rock people got lazy because the bass tends to be very muffled in the first place but even there, burying chokes the note and makes a strange flatness of sound. Sounds terrible in my opinion. Like you're wrongly bending a note on a guitar. Of course you can learn to bounce the beater heal up but getting that feeling internalized happens much faster heal down, and then you can apply that feeling to heel up playing. Plus heel down works your Tibialis Anterior in a crazy way! I think that's another reason people may avoid heel down. It's hard at first. Your stamina will be pathetic. But once you push through that and work it stronger, it gives you so much more confidence to do whatever you want dynamically with the bass drum.
I sit kind of level with the drums so heel down feels natural. In order for me to feel comfortable doing heel up I have to sit so high up now that feels weird.
As far as speed goes, I still think heel down is easier to feather for up tempo, but fast articulations like doubles or even triples I find them easier with heel up.
I could never figure out how to get to a truly relaxed position heal up. I tried many things seat height adjustments, where I put my ass on the throne, etc., but I can never seem to lose the constant tension in my upper thigh at my hip. Anyone have any tips? I've been working on a hybrid technique where I'm mostly heal down and lift my knee briefly before a (fast) double or triple stroke. This gives me power of playing heal up but immediately returns me to relaxed (heal down) position 🤷 edit: why did voice to text spell heel that way?
Both technics are essential for different playing , heal down make you more stable and relax . Heel up more power but 100 % chance you buried the beater who will makes your sound a bit less open . Knowing both technics makes you more versatile
I thought heel down was basically what you did for jazz playing. I mean, not me since I don't play jazz now, but when I was doing it in school it was always easier to get the soft stuff with heel down.
I have been a heel-down drummer for all of my natural life. I play mainly super linear stuff, breakcore inspired music, jazz, funk, hip-hop, EDM, 8bit. For ten of my forty years, I've been playing with no socks or shoes. My left foot is heel up, on the hihat. I probably look super goofy when I play, but holy hell is it comfortable. The one and only time I ever played heel-up as a matter of policy, it was because I was in a death metal band, and it was 100% the wrong approach. I should've learned heel-down on my left foot better, instead of trying to force my right foot to learn heel-up, because it's far more comfortable for me because of my leg length. My mother is also an award winning tapdance instructor, so I had a lot of background coming from that that involves the "tactile" feeling of firmer floorings, which translates perfectly to direct drive pedals, especially in a heel-down context. Just throwing my two cents in there.
I’ve always played heel down. Always will. I learned heel up, but I don’t like it (to me it feels so unnatural and foreign). Just my preference. Great video.
Since drumming is physical in nature much like an athletic sport, strength training should be a factor. The "down side" of playing heel down expressed here has to do with strength and or endurance of muscles. As with high level athletics, strength training mitigates these issues.
Didn't you study with John Riley? He's a big advocate of heel down. As he once said, practicing heel down will improve your heel up playing. IMHO, practicing only heel up without developing heel down is like practicing snare drum technique without developing your basic wrist stroke. If you've ever seen Colin Bailey, he had a monster bass drum foot, and he played mostly heel down. From his book Bass Drum Control (highly recommended), he only lifted the heel (and only a tiny amount) when he needed to play very fast, still playing from the ankle. Jojo Mayer also said in his foot technique DVD that heel down offers the most control (but heel up offers more speed). Also, I can understand telling students you don't teach a certain technique, but to discourage them from learning it? You're doing them a disservice. I studied bass drum technique with two different teachers, one heel down and one heel up. In the end, I ended up getting pretty good at both, and use both depending on the situation (with different heel up techniques depending on how fast I need to play - full leg for slower, ankle strokes for faster).
Also, I don’t like you’re “doing a disservice” test, because it’s so open ended. What if a student wants to learn to play with the sticks between his index and middle fingers? If you agree I should discourage that you agree there’s a limit somewhere and it’s just a matter of where ;)
Nate 2 words ankle technique , contract ur calve muscle , no shin pain u can fkin blaze and i have a wooden leg so u really have to be precise w/ placement 😅
I've played heel down for my entire drumming career...I play heel up for quicker double or more hits....Joe Morello played heel down,Buddy used it all, did Louie Bellson....But they all played primarily heel down.Heel up often dampens the Bass drum sound...........You should develop your ankle................Ralph Onofrio
I thought you left out the most glaring and obvious factor or variable in determining which one one might choose, did I just accidentally find a way to use the word won back-to-back but grammatically correct? Anyway as a sound engineer and drummer I'm surprised you didn't bring up the fact that because you brought up the different stage setups in a different types of music and for a second there I thought you were going to go down that lane when you brought up sound engineer but when you play jazz-on stage or even in the studio live-the drummer doesn't need an in ear monitor 2 eliminate the need for a 1000 watt dual floor monitor set up that could fill the whole venue with insincere smiles as all but one have cupped their ears with hands AND MANAGED TO GIVE YOU A THUMBS UP SIGN WITH ONE OF THEIR HANDS STILL ATTACHED TO THEIR HEAD..& the one is a deaf one..even in a recording session even though the drummer might be the first track you still playing with the rhythm guitarist and maybe bassist so all of those frequencies are still going to flood your head phones. Leaving to you inevitably wanting to get more and more volume out of your bass drum, and without realizing it you're now leaning into your every hit, and that applies doubly for live, especially if you're playing cheap gigs and you don't have a quality return signal or in-ear monitors.. if you do you might be able to balance that out a bit but you're still always going to be competing with let's say if you're playing a Pantera cover like Walk, which I did on many an occasion because it was our near to last song, and the guitarist with always seem to be going up to 11:00 and then 12 the later it got, I mean the dial on his volume....I dare anyone try and cover that song heel down.. if you did manage to pull that off make a video of it and if it sounds legit, and your heel truly never left the floor I'll give you a hundred bucks.. but on the other hand whether you're playing cheap gigs or you have the goods &you play in a 3 or 4 piece jazz band or do impromptu spots at Jamaica train station (which I saw a couple of last summer it was pretty cool & and a great example of what I'm talking about, and that's Jamaica Queens) then you would be able to hear probably even some feathering because the only thing over that is a stand-up Bass add a piano or a keyboard all of which are deftly played by musicians who do the opposite as metal musicians and that is constantly try to go lower than each other to prove that less is more and that they are the true jazz purist and figured out how to make the most beautiful music with no sound at all ;) I jest, but you see my point from an audio engineer standpoint or if you were to say put the audio engineer behind the drummer he would say to the jazz drummer can you try playing with your heel down and to the metal drummer if they were playing heal down he would say can you try playing with your heel up because I need a little more volume out of that kick.. and if you were to say the type of drum head and drum and style of the ages is just as important I would say that's true but also very closely knit together with the style of music ....the type of bass drum and drum head that would engender a heel down technique is not going to be played by Vinnie Paul so in closing I would ante in- the style of music you play, how good a sound engineer you have and how good a monitor setup the drummer has has a lot to do with which technique you would use and if you are blessed enough to be able to do let's say jazz on the weekends for a wedding cake and metal on Friday nights for your real band then hopefully you could learn to do both,❤ so it's not about which is better it's about what type of rifle you use in close quarter combat as compared to being a sniper no one's going to say a sniper rifle is better or worse then it p90 but if you were to use a p90 as a sniper then clearly you don't plan on taking anyone out more than 20 ft away and we need to assess your definition of the word sniper
Whenever this question is asked I want to chime in about how pedals in my airplanes and tractors do more than one thing, why can't drumset pedals work double duty? Here's me using a heel-down technique to play kick AND control the bass envelope. ruclips.net/video/k-cyCfdXv-A/видео.htmlsi=jtF4Dz-z35U0ep7V
@@dloorkour1256 thanks for asking. It's a pretty unique system. Not too complicated but hard to describe with words on paper. The notes played with the hands are expressed with the feet. My vids are crappy but this may answer some questions... ruclips.net/video/xDZJDsVQTj4/видео.html
@@dloorkour1256 excuse if there are two replys. Great question. It is a unique system that reguires more than text to explain. This video probably will help, excuse my crappy vid. ruclips.net/video/xDZJDsVQTj4/видео.html
Nate: I applaud your experimental/evidence based approach, but i wish to point out that in the experiment you are CONSCIOUS of the dynamic level. You know your goal ahead of time,. But when playing with other musicians you are reacting/responding, mostly unconsciously, to both them and the music. I don't think this issue is a dichotomous choice; it's an artistic expression.
How can there be a hybrid? Isn`t heel down when your foot is ONLY heel down and if you lift it no matter how much is heel up? What is that guy even talking about? Anyway, i find heel down very limiting and if you can obtain any sound with heel up then what`s the point in doing something else..
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Both of these guys modestly play down the fact that they have mastered both techniques and can use either one as needed. That's the hard way and the right way.
The "right" way? That's a big claim in itself. It took a while, but I worked out how to orient my leg for heel down, which involves several variables, so that I get the thigh muscle advantage of heel up and the subtlety of heel down, and I've had no problems with it since, it just keeps getting better. Anyone else who tried my way of heel down, might, for example, find they have trouble with their reach, which I don't. The fact is that there is no single "right way", because we're all physiologically different. Nate is still basically just saying, that heel up is better than heel down, and that may be true for him, but anyone chasing anyone else's ideal has a significant chance of getting lost up a blind alley.
Big drumming question: “Shirt? Or NO shirt?”
😂
If you got it.Flaunt it
Basketball jersey
Next video: shoes or no shoes? Commando boots or runners? Interview Thomas Haake for "heel-up, no shoes". RUclips gold right there, BRO!
No shoes, just like no gloves! Wait, Tomas use a glove, damn 😳😂
No shoes!
@@ruffryder13Yes! 🦶🏻
ruclips.net/user/shortssN2dORgvR9A?si=2a3sqcX-0XlvikJt
sock or no sock though
@@shhshhshhshh Ah, but of course: no socks! 🦶🏻
ruclips.net/user/shortssN2dORgvR9A?si=PugOuVEJ3dOlhw2C
I play heel up, but at rest, my foot is heel down. If I'm playing successive notes, my heel stays up until the last note where I land with the heel down. I don't bury the beater. Because I land the last note, or single notes at slow tempos, with my heel coming to rest flat on the pedal, I can easily let the beater come off the head. Back when I used to keep my heel up and bury the beater, I always had a problem with tension in my foot and leg. When I learned this new technique, I found that letting my heel rest on the pedal naturally released the tension in my leg. And I still get the power of the heel up position, often using the weight of my leg to generate the stroke.
I learned this technique from an article in Modern Drummer quite a few years ago. I'm sorry to say that I don't remember the drummer who wrote the article. I've seen clips of Jojo Meyer using this technique. It's kind of a variation of heel/ toe technique, except one starts with the toe and then the heel. I'm currently working on the slide technique, which is pretty much the same thing, except it incorporates the forward movement of the lower leg.
I do need to work on playing heel down as it would improve the use of my ankle when playing faster or lighter strokes. But I find it quite difficult. My leg gets tired rather quickly, and I find that the tension in my calf starts to set in. I haven't yet found a way to release that tension. Dom Famularo suggested that even heel up players should practice playing the heel down technique, as it improves overall facility in playing fast notes. I've watched his feet while he played some pretty fast double pedal rolls, and his feet look like they are barely moving. So he had really mastered the concept of economy of motion and letting the rebound of the beaters do the work. It's so sad that he's gone.
The key is to learn both and be interchangeable and fluent. I can play both and everything in between. Not being a smartarse but I learned mostly from the jo jo Mayer DVD, it illustrates the importance of control and dynamics using many techniques.
Absolutely! Just like whenever I see a discussion about "French, German, or American grip?", I think "yes?". I permanently switch depending on instrument and body position towards the instrument. It's super efficient and I only scratched the surface of it. I even found that practicing traditional grip gives me a massive control boost in match. Know your instrument like you know your body.
heel up/ heel down is just a dynamic change for me. more often than not i'm not playing anything to complex quietly, so heel down does the job. typically anything complex or fast i'm heel up. similar to how i choke up on the sticks to play quieter, and then have them nearly out of my hands to really dig in and crush notes. it's just a matter of using physics to achieve your goal.
Forward shin angle! You're my favorite source for well explained esoteric drum knowledge but I think you left out what I think is one of the most important parts of heel up: Sitting far enough away that your shin is pointing diagonally from your knee to ankle
Awesoooooooome 🙌 Tim is one of my absolute jazz heroes ❤❤❤ the touch, the accuracy, the ride cymbal beat 🙌 just amazing
I appreciate you making this video. Your previous videos declaring heel up as the one and only method, made it really hard for me to take you seriously as a teacher. The real answer to heal up or heal down which you seem to have arrived at in this video is "it depends".
For me, I started playing heal up but have always adjusted the spring tension so I don't bury the beater. I was also mostly playing rock, punk, and funk in those early days. Power, and especially powerful doubles and triples come easier heal up. As I started playing more jazz and as I started playing at more jazz jams on other people's equipment, one thing I ran into was pedals with much less spring tension than I was used to, and un-ported reso heads. If I played heal up I would unintentionally bury the beater, and the beater would flub and bounce around off the head. I felt like I had no control of my foot playing heal up in these conditions. I started playing heal down and this fixed a lot of those issues. Having the heal planted gave me a lot more fine grain control. I can play softer and more precise without depending on specific spring tension or rebound feel of the batter head. And of course now I play a mix of both. If I need more power or ultimate double speed I'll likely play heal up. If I need to play quiet or if the pedal/bass feel is too far from what I'm used to I'll play heal down.
Thanks Nate and Tim for taking the time to analyse this technique! Although I'll admit, I'm more used to heel down technique, for the first time ever I experienced a bit of fatigue in playing loud and fast on a piece I was playing, so I won't rule out playing heel up from now on ocassionally to get used to it.
I would just go on to say, as a professional drummer, when a drummer is comfortable and used to playing heel up or heel down, whatever you are most comfortable at, predominantly stick with I would say.
However, like me don't be afraid to swap to the other technique should the need and circumstances dictate, particularly for the sake of health and safety and avoiding repetitive strain injury! Comfort and heath, go a long way to a long and good career on drums, so don't be afraid to have good comfortable posture at all times!
Hope this helps, God bless!
I feel like the heel up vs heel down debate is like debating between playing with your wrist vs using your entire forearm. There are obviously reasons for using/learning both. There are no wrong answers. What works for you might not work for someone else. Everyone's physical comfort is different
Whatever works best and feels best for the individual drummer.
are there zero other criteria beyond that? What if the drummer is stuck in a local optimum because they don't know what they're missing? What if they have no sense of "what it's supposed to feel like" so they assume tension or technical limitations are inherent rather than artifacts or limitations of the technique. "feels best" compared to what? I'm critical of these kneejerk "whatever works best" comments, because I think they're very easy to say, but ignore a lot of important details.
@@8020drummer I hear ya…there is certainly much to explore and work on. Limiting oneself because you don’t want to get out of a comfort zone is no way to advance. Also, the heel down techniques seems to particularly work well with certain approaches to bass drumming. I had a teacher who insisted I played heel down and it literally hurt my feet. Perhaps I could have soldiered through it but it seemed like heel up worked for what I wanted out of the drums . Maybe I am missing out.
Thank you for helping me find Tim.
Thanks, Nate! Your vids are great to keep me in practice and advancing in skill as I search for a way to get the space to set up my kit again in between bands. In sitting in chair tapping feet and slapping thighs practice I've found that heel down works for a lot of pop, reggae, jazz, funk if it's not too heavy. Then I've been training hard rock and heavy metal, or in the case of Black Sabbath they're almost a heavy bebop band. For powerful and fast one foot things like John Bonham and Bill Ward I just can't keep my heel down and get all the beats to come through. I find that for those kind of beats like in Paranoid or Good Times Bad Times the constant 8th notes don't come through without my whole foot free to move and my thigh muscles able to add the oomph to project that kick beyond the roaring row of speaker towers and full tube amps on either side of the kit. Same thing for any hip hop with excessive kick bumps. To get the freedom to bounce I got to lift my heel. If it's only jazz, I still instinctively lift heel for occasional accents.
I've played heel down my whole life. It has just always felt more comfortable. In the last couple years I have started working on heel up for some stuff, but I feel like I am on a tight rope with no balance. Like you said Nate, it will take some time to feel comfortable. At this stage of my life I have nothing but time to have fun and challenge myself to learn both. Thanks for another great video.
Whatever works best for the individual. You definitely made the point about playing softer styles with the heel down. I've met drummers who were freaks about "Releasing" EVERY time the beater hits the head. . . . . . . . . Of course these same guys knew nothing, about tuning. Personally I'm a P3 heel up kinda guy. There's truly something to be said for an instrument, that you hit! Plain ole' therapeutic!
As always, you do a good job exploring the nuances of this kind of topic. To me, asking whether you should use heel-up or heel-down, is a bit like asking whether you should use your fingers, wrists, or forearms. It just seems to me that the must useful answer is to learn all of the techniques & combine them as necessary. Specifically, check out "Secret Weapons Part 2: A Guide to Foot Technique" by Jojo Mayer. The combined motions are what I would call Moeller for your feet.
Ive only been drumming a few months, but it seems like both are useful.
Im currenly studying jazz, and heel up feathering just seems unnecessarily hard.
Great video Nate!
I play heel up and as I want not to bury the beater, I just let my heel rest after the stroke (when there are not too much) and that makes the beater come off the head. It doesn't make sense to me to let the heels always up when I'm not moving my feet.
As a rock drummer thrown into a jazz ensemble, heel down was the only way I could play light enough on the kick right away
There is a great Vinnie Colaiuta video out there where hes doing both, as well as Tony Williams and Steve Gadd. The Vinnie video is from a Kimo Williams session where he's rehearsing and playing heel down but when they do a take he's playing heel up. Both with supreme control. I've seen the same with Larnell.
When I started as a self-taught cave man rock drummer, I went with heel up, off the head. I had to correct the unintentional extra hits, but that wasn't difficult, and I don't even remember how I did that. The only difficulties have been playing quietly (have recently sorted that out with practice) and keeping balance. I also prefer the sound of rock drummers playing heel up. Maybe the leg movement translates to a little extra drive to the sound. I could see though if playing primarily quiet music, heel down would be a good starting point.
Thanks Nate. As a drummer and as a teacher, I recommend doing both, and work on transition. Did you ever heard about the so called constant/release motion? In one word. I vote for hybrid 😊
I feel that studying heel down helps playing heel up!
If you are going to rate heel down against heel up, then you should be doing it with correct heel down technique. Around 12:15, you trial heel down, playing hard and rapid beats, but you're not using heel down technique correctly. Your lower leg is vertical and that's why your shin ends up burning. When playing heel down, the physics of the leg requires that your knee is further away from the kit than your ankle which creates a machine out of your foot, ankle joint, lower and upper leg bones, and knee joint, that enables you to use your upper leg muscles to drive the lower part of your leg turning your foot around your ankle to pound as heavily as you need on the pedal without burning your shin.
You say earlier in the video that heel down is difficult up close and there you came near to the truth because the physics cannot then be applied. In contrast, heel up works best when the lower leg is vertical, when the reverse, of sitting too far away from the kit, makes it almost impossible. Because of my particular physiology, I've always been heel down and I had all kinds of trouble with it until I figured out the proper physics required and how to apply it.
Leg and arm length affects this as well. I have extra long arms and need to sit further back in my kit, so correct heel down works very well for me, because luckily, my legs are long enough to make it work very comfortably. If your physiology is different, you may need another solution, but physiology cannot be discounted. The big problem for me would remain, if I was stuck being too close to the bass drum, but I'm not and will move heaven and earth for that to never be an issue. I produce my own music in my own studio and it's all set up to suit me. I've had other drummers come in to have all kinds of difficulty with my set up and yes they all had different physiologies to mine.
Maybe your physiology is ideally suited to heel up. I follow your channel, because you are generally more unbiased than most, but in this case you're not. The issue of physiology cannot be sidestepped.
I think I caveat and call out everything you mention here. The detail you’re missing in your comment is that I played heel down for over 15 years. Do you think I just neglected to find the ideal setup that whole time? ;)
He said he was too lazy to use a white board so why would he go to the trouble of moving his throne back?
@@8020drummer So why not point out and demonstrate that ideal in this comparison? That's my point, that you're not comparing them fairly in this video. Nowhere in this video do you explicitly mention the physiology of heel down: lower leg angled away from the bass drum and upper leg angled down towards the knee. I've not seen a proper description of heel down in any of your videos - maybe I just missed it - but it should be in this one. I'm just as enthusiastic about heel down as you are about heel up, for the reasons mentioned in my comment above.
And, of course you would have tried to find the ideal setup for heel down when you were using it, but it just may be that it doesn't suit your physiology. Which doesn't mean it won't suit anyone else's.
@@Turbulator I’m pretty sure I mention all of those trade offs in the “tick tack toe” section. Bottom line: I can guarantee the limitations I experienced in the side by side comparison weren’t because of setup. Despite appearances, I felt comfortable with the setup.
@@8020drummer There is one issue you keep sidestepping. I just checked out the “tick tack toe” section to be clear, and at 13:32 you say for heel down playing louder, that you get shin splints and fatigue, which is not true if you orient your leg correctly and are able to use your upper leg to drive. At 17:05 when you play heel down you can clearly see that your shin is vertical, maybe even slightly angled towards the bass drum. That's shin splint city, where the upper leg, physically cannot drive. My knee is 11cm behind my shin, which is at an angle of 13 degrees away from the bass drum. My Knee is 9cm below the top of my thigh, which is angled down towards the bass drum at an angle of 11 degrees.
It's important to note that with my leg like that, heel up is impossible to do comfortably. To compare heel up I can't just move my seat closer, the knock on involves rearranging my entire kit. So a choice does have to be made. You can't use both fully and easily from the same setup, like some have suggested is the "correct way", so I have maximised my heel down setup which works very well for me and it also turns out that the bonus is that I much prefer the arrangement of the pieces of my kit around me which that allows.
To be fair to you, you have the opposite, a kit set up maximised for heel up, in which you can't just move away to demonstrate heel down, because then everything else in your kit has moved further away. A proper comparison could be done with you doing heel up on your kit, with another drummer who uses heel down on their kit. I do realise you compared notes with another drummer in this video, but more shots of his leg and foot playing the kick drum would provide a better comparison.
You say it yourself, because heel up really suits you and you've been playing it for some time, you've worked out strategies to get around the supposed limitations. That applies equally to someone for whom heel down really suits and has similarly ironed out the supposed limitations. I want to see the “tick tack toe” that compares those two people. And I know you had the two methods pretty close at the end of your video, but I still get the impression you believe heel up is better.
Good content as usual! Another benefit of heel down is easier balance, particularly when playing patterns between both feet.. which leads to the next question - hihat heel up/down/both? A good working grasp of a wide range of techniques will usually be ideal.
That one is easy, there is no way that you can get a tight chick sound without playing heel-up and putting the weight of your leg on it. But for hihat openings: heel-down!
Great video, I have long struggled with foot control. As usual, you bring up some great points. I think every drummer should practice to gain at least some proficiency in both techniques. Setup preferences, individual anatomy and genre dynamics are going to determine what technique functions better for the individual drummer.
I used to get knee pain and back pain from strictly playing heel down even when burying the beater, with my power / volume coming from pulling up / back with the hip flexors and then pushing out / down with the quads. But I also sat too low and far away from the drum set (actually started off for a while playing while sitting on my bed, so I had to put the bass drum pretty far away to be able to fit a floor tom). I usually played either barefoot or with socks on.
Getting back into drumming after a long break, I'm sitting higher up and closer to the kit now, always wearing shoes, and using what I would call a non-floating heel up technique. Or would I call it a non-planted heel down technique? Either way, my heel isn't glued to the pedal's heel plate, though it often ends up resting there. For power, I "snap" the pedal (bass drum or hi-hat) down with the calves and / or glutes, and play with much less fatigue.
I think Tim's remark regarding one's balance being dependent on a certain technique is maybe the key point to keep in mind with all this. And what about the hi-hat foot? It seems like most players that aren't exclusively playing rock or metal keep the left heel down as a sort of anchor point much of the time.
Btw, to my eyes, it looks like your heel is still lifting up at times in your heel-down examples, like at 12:28
I just switch in between both techniques constantly, especially due to the dynamics of the music I play. Just like how metal drummers change their double bass playing style based on tempo while keeping a desired level of dynamics and control. Sometimes throwing a little swivel into my jazz kick double strokes works great too. So much kinda unseen carryover between genres, even at the extremes.
I play what I'd call a hybrid heel up/heel down. My heal doesn't go into the up position until I'm ready to strike the drum, and I never bury the beater. What may be missing from this conversation is where your foot is on the kick pedal. I tend to play in the middle of the pedal most of the time, and I can move my foot further back for less power if need be.
You are never wrong, sir!
Lol I wish
I've used heel down for 53 years. When playing heel down my spring is pretty loose. The reason for this is that I use bounce like you use with sticks. At times I use rebound off the bass drum head. I never bury my beater into the head. If I want to play really loud I will slightly raise my heel or possibly the whole foot to get big loud strokes. Even though I play heel down my foot needs to be able to move or slide on the foot board to get doubles. Heel down absolutely works, and you're not going to get shin splints. With some practice you can get a loud bass drum sound with heel down. But this isn't the only technique to use on the bass drum.
the forbidden subject 😂
Nate, an opinion, the Burying the beater or not burying work like the Sticks, when you hit the head with the beater, you have to push it with the pedal but not keeping the beater into the head and then losing the tension, its must act like a drumstick, it should rebound on the head and stay away. sorry for my bad english.
I switch styles whenever needed, it depends on what i need to bring out of the bassdrum, and of my kit as a whole, depending on the piece of music i'm playing.
Another wonderful video from you. Nathaniel you are the best drummer of all time. All of your earth shattering live performances should be recorded for eternity. Above all, your ability to deal with criticism of your statements is incomparably good. The world needs judges like you like air to breathe. It's so sad that drummers dare to release something without asking your opinion first. Even Gadd could learn from you.
What would you have recommended, besides inviting Tim on the channel for a convo, making a video highlighting both our sides, showing that video to him before publishing it and getting a big thumbs up, then publishing the entire interview? Seems like one of us has trouble dealing with critiques of their cherished beliefs, and I don’t think it’s me. Would love an answer to my question but not holding out much hope.
@@8020drummer That was just my honest, personal, positive opinion. Did I write something wrong? Then I would like to sincerely apologize. Feel free to moderate my potentially inappropriate comment.
@@F-YT-comments-censorship still waiting for an answer ;)
@@8020drummer I see my mistake now. My comment related more to your entire work. As for your question, I don't want to be so presumptuous as to recommend anything to you. You're far too superior to me for that.
@@F-YT-comments-censorship well you apparently thought you had standing to leave a snarky comment in the first place so why quit when I ask a clarifying question. Seems like your willingness to engage depends on whether you have anything of substance to say or want to hide
There's another issue to consider here which has to do with back issues. Some muscles used for heel up vs down are clearly different. I have lower back issues and find that lower back fatigue is exacerbated by heel up. My preference would be to be comfortable with both techniques and switch to whatever is appropriate at any given time, but my back says, "No you don't." So I play about 95 percent heel down and switch to heel up only for certain situations. Sometimes that might be just for the bridge of a song, or whatever. BTW, I do a lot of ballroom dance gigs and I find feathering to be much easier with heel down.
because i started with heel down due to noise levels it was many years later i had to re learn heel up..........i also now angle my foot to ( 1 o'clock) because that bone / tendon on the lower shin...stops me from playing easily
I feel that it may be worth investigating Jeff Hamilton's thoughts and techniques on this subject.
My instructor has me practicing some heel down in order to build up the muscle strength but that's because I'm newer to playing
As a metal drummer who recently joined an acoustic pop band, there was a steep learning curve in dynamics, and I noticed that the more I get comfortable with the style of playing, the more my heel up/heel-toe techniques stick out like a sore thumb and get in the way. Definitely gonna grind heel down.
yeah it's hard at first. The Tibialis Anterior muscle fails pretty quick early on. But when it gets strong, it makes heel down such a joy to play.
I'm not a pro by any means, mostly play at home cause I've always loved drumming. Started out heel down, and I've been that way for a couple of decades, but I'm also a metal fan and that requires high bpm double bass for the most part.
I wish I had at least sometimes worked on heel up, it's so hard to get it down good after doing heel down for so long. I'm still mightily struggling trying to find the right spot where it feels anywhere near as comfortable as heel down does to me, but I've reached my max heel down speed and heel up is the only way to get faster. Control is almost non-existent, but I don't know if it's me, my pedal settings, or a combo of the two. I wish I still had teenager-levels of free time to figure it out. I even bought some really nice overpriced pedals(the machined dw's), and it has helped a little, but not as much as I had hoped. Sometimes I think I need heavier springs on them, but I can't seem to find any for that specific pedal, so that's why I tend to think it's just me. Matt Gartska doesn't seem to have a problem using them. 😅
I always end up using both, even though the same song, just because it gives my leg a rest with the heel down. Plus, my technique has kind of evolved to where I bounce the beater off of the head, rather than “burying” it
Saying which is better between heal up vs heal down is like matched vs traditional grip; French vs German grip, they are all valid depending on the application. Not only should a drummer learn them all but also learn to switch between them on the fly.
Which muscles are you using? That will reveal if you're "heel down" or not. Great vid!
In my opinion, no one technique is right for every situation. Like in our hands, we wouldn't JUST use wrist or JUST use fingers. It depends on the note speed and dynamics and context. I play rock and funk and church gigs mostly heel up, where jazz and Brazilian and stuff is mostly heel down. but my resting point is sort of a hybrid. My heel is down but it's not really bearing the weight of my leg. So I treat it like a hand and do whatever needs to be done to get whatever sound I'm looking for. A good example is I'll use heel up for double then go back into heel down for bass feathering and lighter comping.
Both ..... obviously 🤟
Another interesting aspect of pedal control is not letting the beater go beyond 90 degrees. I noticed that Nate lets it go beyond 90 degrees which to me stretches the pedal beyond its optimal playing angle. I do not keep my bass drum flat because of this and I believe that it makes the beater hit the head at a weird angle, kind of like skidding into the head. Ultimately drummers should learn both heel up and down as they both have their benefits depending on what is being played.
As a kid who's favorite drummers were all rock/metal guys all the videos I saw were them playing heal up, so of course that's exactly what I wanted to do. Luckily as soon as I got my first kit I started taking lessons with a teacher who is a Jazz drummer. He made me go heal down and I'm thankful he did. Of course I played heel up outside of my lessons but would switch it up depending on what I was playing. So in my opinion the correct answer is both. But.....and I'm going to get judgemental here....
I think for beginners they should probably start heal down as it's much easier to learn bounce that way. And I really think burying the beater is a very bad habit. To paraphrase Tommy Igoe in one of his videos (talking about flams), if you're burying the beater because that's the sound you're going for, then fine, but if you're burying the beater because you don't know how to bounce, then that's a technique issue and you need to practice. Burying the beater is just bad technique. Especially if your bass drum is any kind of resonant. I think in rock people got lazy because the bass tends to be very muffled in the first place but even there, burying chokes the note and makes a strange flatness of sound. Sounds terrible in my opinion. Like you're wrongly bending a note on a guitar.
Of course you can learn to bounce the beater heal up but getting that feeling internalized happens much faster heal down, and then you can apply that feeling to heel up playing. Plus heel down works your Tibialis Anterior in a crazy way! I think that's another reason people may avoid heel down. It's hard at first. Your stamina will be pathetic. But once you push through that and work it stronger, it gives you so much more confidence to do whatever you want dynamically with the bass drum.
I sit kind of level with the drums so heel down feels natural. In order for me to feel comfortable doing heel up I have to sit so high up now that feels weird.
As far as speed goes, I still think heel down is easier to feather for up tempo, but fast articulations like doubles or even triples I find them easier with heel up.
I could never figure out how to get to a truly relaxed position heal up. I tried many things seat height adjustments, where I put my ass on the throne, etc., but I can never seem to lose the constant tension in my upper thigh at my hip. Anyone have any tips?
I've been working on a hybrid technique where I'm mostly heal down and lift my knee briefly before a (fast) double or triple stroke. This gives me power of playing heal up but immediately returns me to relaxed (heal down) position 🤷
edit: why did voice to text spell heel that way?
Check the card
My 2 cents: fast heel-up double strokes without burying the beater …
ruclips.net/user/shortssN2dORgvR9A?si=_euHKYS-twmS7TVD
I slide my foot on the plate and heel down learn the different techniques like everything else with our craft what up Nate thankyou
Both technics are essential for different playing , heal down make you more stable and relax . Heel up more power but 100 % chance you buried the beater who will makes your sound a bit less open . Knowing both technics makes you more versatile
Not 100% chance of burying the beater tho - watch Keith carlock at drumeo ;)
@@8020drummer you are right not 100% but close , big fan of keith drumming here
I thought heel down was basically what you did for jazz playing. I mean, not me since I don't play jazz now, but when I was doing it in school it was always easier to get the soft stuff with heel down.
WAIT i already do that 😂
I have been a heel-down drummer for all of my natural life. I play mainly super linear stuff, breakcore inspired music, jazz, funk, hip-hop, EDM, 8bit. For ten of my forty years, I've been playing with no socks or shoes.
My left foot is heel up, on the hihat.
I probably look super goofy when I play, but holy hell is it comfortable.
The one and only time I ever played heel-up as a matter of policy, it was because I was in a death metal band, and it was 100% the wrong approach. I should've learned heel-down on my left foot better, instead of trying to force my right foot to learn heel-up, because it's far more comfortable for me because of my leg length.
My mother is also an award winning tapdance instructor, so I had a lot of background coming from that that involves the "tactile" feeling of firmer floorings, which translates perfectly to direct drive pedals, especially in a heel-down context.
Just throwing my two cents in there.
I do both. It's like using a wrist stroke or an arm stroke..
Work on all three: heel up, heel down, hybrid.
I’ve always played heel down. Always will. I learned heel up, but I don’t like it (to me it feels so unnatural and foreign). Just my preference. Great video.
Damn, bro playing my favorite Periphery song, single kick pedal no less? Is there a video I missed?
lol yes. Just search it.
Since drumming is physical in nature much like an athletic sport, strength training should be a factor. The "down side" of playing heel down expressed here has to do with strength and or endurance of muscles. As with high level athletics, strength training mitigates these issues.
It's probably good to use both methods
Heels up 4 life! #burythatshiz
What about heel only?
BASED
IMO! Heel up for metal/death metal. Heel down for slow tempo..soft stuff…lol. Learn to do both and you'll be granted the golden ticket
feathering is the only practical use for heal down
Didn't you study with John Riley? He's a big advocate of heel down. As he once said, practicing heel down will improve your heel up playing. IMHO, practicing only heel up without developing heel down is like practicing snare drum technique without developing your basic wrist stroke.
If you've ever seen Colin Bailey, he had a monster bass drum foot, and he played mostly heel down. From his book Bass Drum Control (highly recommended), he only lifted the heel (and only a tiny amount) when he needed to play very fast, still playing from the ankle. Jojo Mayer also said in his foot technique DVD that heel down offers the most control (but heel up offers more speed).
Also, I can understand telling students you don't teach a certain technique, but to discourage them from learning it? You're doing them a disservice. I studied bass drum technique with two different teachers, one heel down and one heel up. In the end, I ended up getting pretty good at both, and use both depending on the situation (with different heel up techniques depending on how fast I need to play - full leg for slower, ankle strokes for faster).
I should ask John about this. I could swear he plays heel up now.
Also, I don’t like you’re “doing a disservice” test, because it’s so open ended. What if a student wants to learn to play with the sticks between his index and middle fingers? If you agree I should discourage that you agree there’s a limit somewhere and it’s just a matter of where ;)
Nate 2 words ankle technique , contract ur calve muscle , no shin pain u can fkin blaze and i have a wooden leg so u really have to be precise w/ placement 😅
I've played heel down for my entire drumming career...I play heel up for quicker double or more hits....Joe Morello played heel down,Buddy used it all, did Louie Bellson....But they all played primarily heel down.Heel up often dampens the Bass drum sound...........You should develop your ankle................Ralph Onofrio
I thought you left out the most glaring and obvious factor or variable in determining which one one might choose, did I just accidentally find a way to use the word won back-to-back but grammatically correct? Anyway as a sound engineer and drummer I'm surprised you didn't bring up the fact that because you brought up the different stage setups in a different types of music and for a second there I thought you were going to go down that lane when you brought up sound engineer but when you play jazz-on stage or even in the studio live-the drummer doesn't need an in ear monitor 2 eliminate the need for a 1000 watt dual floor monitor set up that could fill the whole venue with insincere smiles as all but one have cupped their ears with hands AND MANAGED TO GIVE YOU A THUMBS UP SIGN WITH ONE OF THEIR HANDS STILL ATTACHED TO THEIR HEAD..& the one is a deaf one..even in a recording session even though the drummer might be the first track you still playing with the rhythm guitarist and maybe bassist so all of those frequencies are still going to flood your head phones. Leaving to you inevitably wanting to get more and more volume out of your bass drum, and without realizing it you're now leaning into your every hit, and that applies doubly for live, especially if you're playing cheap gigs and you don't have a quality return signal or in-ear monitors.. if you do you might be able to balance that out a bit but you're still always going to be competing with let's say if you're playing a Pantera cover like Walk, which I did on many an occasion because it was our near to last song, and the guitarist with always seem to be going up to 11:00 and then 12 the later it got, I mean the dial on his volume....I dare anyone try and cover that song heel down.. if you did manage to pull that off make a video of it and if it sounds legit, and your heel truly never left the floor I'll give you a hundred bucks.. but on the other hand whether you're playing cheap gigs or you have the goods &you play in a 3 or 4 piece jazz band or do impromptu spots at Jamaica train station (which I saw a couple of last summer it was pretty cool & and a great example of what I'm talking about, and that's Jamaica Queens) then you would be able to hear probably even some feathering because the only thing over that is a stand-up Bass add a piano or a keyboard all of which are deftly played by musicians who do the opposite as metal musicians and that is constantly try to go lower than each other to prove that less is more and that they are the true jazz purist and figured out how to make the most beautiful music with no sound at all ;) I jest, but you see my point from an audio engineer standpoint or if you were to say put the audio engineer behind the drummer he would say to the jazz drummer can you try playing with your heel down and to the metal drummer if they were playing heal down he would say can you try playing with your heel up because I need a little more volume out of that kick.. and if you were to say the type of drum head and drum and style of the ages is just as important I would say that's true but also very closely knit together with the style of music ....the type of bass drum and drum head that would engender a heel down technique is not going to be played by Vinnie Paul so in closing I would ante in- the style of music you play, how good a sound engineer you have and how good a monitor setup the drummer has has a lot to do with which technique you would use and if you are blessed enough to be able to do let's say jazz on the weekends for a wedding cake and metal on Friday nights for your real band then hopefully you could learn to do both,❤ so it's not about which is better it's about what type of rifle you use in close quarter combat as compared to being a sniper no one's going to say a sniper rifle is better or worse then it p90 but if you were to use a p90 as a sniper then clearly you don't plan on taking anyone out more than 20 ft away and we need to assess your definition of the word sniper
Whoa
Neither-
You need to use both
Why?
Whenever this question is asked I want to chime in about how pedals in my airplanes and tractors do more than one thing, why can't drumset pedals work double duty? Here's me using a heel-down technique to play kick AND control the bass envelope. ruclips.net/video/k-cyCfdXv-A/видео.htmlsi=jtF4Dz-z35U0ep7V
"Control the bass envelope"... some sort of midi trigger? Can you say more? I can't see enough detail in your video the see what's going on.
@@dloorkour1256 thanks for asking. It's a pretty unique system. Not too complicated but hard to describe with words on paper. The notes played with the hands are expressed with the feet. My vids are crappy but this may answer some questions... ruclips.net/video/xDZJDsVQTj4/видео.html
@@dloorkour1256 excuse if there are two replys. Great question. It is a unique system that reguires more than text to explain. This video probably will help, excuse my crappy vid. ruclips.net/video/xDZJDsVQTj4/видео.html
@@dloorkour1256 yes, midi notes triggered with hands are articulated with the feet.
Nate: I applaud your experimental/evidence based approach, but i wish to point out that in the experiment you are CONSCIOUS of the dynamic level. You know your goal ahead of time,. But when playing with other musicians you are reacting/responding, mostly unconsciously, to both them and the music. I don't think this issue is a dichotomous choice; it's an artistic expression.
How can there be a hybrid? Isn`t heel down when your foot is ONLY heel down and if you lift it no matter how much is heel up? What is that guy even talking about? Anyway, i find heel down very limiting and if you can obtain any sound with heel up then what`s the point in doing something else..
Both heel up and down are tools on my belt, so…
Both
Everything in moderation...
Including moderation lol
heel down all day long
Heel UP...There is NO POWER in heel down.
You learn both. Problem solved…
Im a heel down master