00:00Hola, bienvenido a todos, Klaus Hessler está hablando con ustedes, esta vez el tema es Pedal Technique, Foot Technique
00:07y antes de comenzar con algunos ejercicios basados en ese tema,
00:12vamos a descubrir un poco más de la parte conceptual de este tema.
00:20Primero, es interesante pensar en algunos de los cambios y el diferencia entre lo que es que realmente lo hace
00:32con tus manos
00:33y lo que es que realmente lo hace con tus manos y lo que es que realmente lo hace con
00:35tus manos.
00:35Y a veces, si sabes lo que estás haciendo con tus manos, tienes un montón de respuestas listas para qué
00:42es lo que tienes que hacer con tus manos.
00:44So, understanding hand technique means you're better at understanding foot technique, that's number one.
00:51With hands or say with upper limbs, so to speak, you have actually say three different levels that you can
01:02use for your movements.
01:03It's arm, wrist and fingers, makes three of course.
01:08With your foot, it's not really three, it's actually only two, it's your leg and it's the ankle creating movement.
01:19There is no parallel for the fingers, which actually creates quite some differences.
01:25So, another aspect really is that when you look at hands, there is only a piece of wood, which is
01:37the stick between yourself, you the player and the drum or the pad or whatever it is that you want
01:45to hit.
01:45With your foot, there is quite a complicated device between you and the drum, which makes things much more difficult.
01:57On the same hand, the stick actually follows the rules of gravity.
02:03With the bass drum pedal, the beater works alongside the gravity, not really following the gravity and also, as opposed
02:17to with hands where you have some sort of natural rebound, the pedal in itself needs extra spring tension to
02:27help rebound and to help the action of the beater.
02:30So, it's a bit of all of that, that you need to have in mind in order to develop certain
02:37technical strategies.
02:39Now, just as you may think about different ways of how you hold the stick, different options of grip, there
02:48is different options of where you are on the pedal.
02:52So, in my eyes, the parallel between holding a stick between forefinger and thumb or middle finger or ring finger
03:03or little finger hold and anything in between, that pretty much relates to where you are with your foot on
03:10the board, really.
03:12And also, allowing for rebound, which is quite an important aspect in hand technique, also applies to foot technique in
03:26terms of, say, usually I allow the beater to return from the head.
03:32There may be exceptions to the rule, but usually I'm not pressing the beater into the head.
03:41And just in the same way as my stick usually stays in motion when I'm playing, you don't see that
03:54my stick is kind of stopping in between the movements.
03:58In the very same way, my beater of the bass drum pedal is not stopping the movement when I play
04:05things like...
04:09It's always the beater in motion.
04:14No matter if it's that technique or this.
04:23There may be ways to do this for certain reasons of sound, let's say, or to have extra options for
04:34accents, but it's more the exception than the rule for myself to press the beater into the head.
04:45So, just as you were possibly thinking about different sticks that you're using, you may spend some time to think
04:57about the weight of your beater.
04:59So, for me, actually, it's quite important that my beater is not too heavy and not too light in order
05:07to be able to play a certain arrangement of different things.
05:13Also, the length of the board is quite some interesting aspect for me.
05:19Also, the dimensions of the pedal in itself.
05:23I mean, how does the ground plate relate to the length of the board, relate to the size of the
05:30heel plate.
05:31And all of that is pretty important in terms of getting a feel for the pedal and all its different
05:39options of how you can adjust it.
05:42And finally, of course, it also comes down to how you sit behind the drums.
05:49So, when I sit behind that super basic set of drums, the direction I'm looking towards, if you will, is
05:59more, say, in between hi-hat and bass drum.
06:03I'm not twisting my upper body to look towards the direction of my bass drum. It's more this.
06:13On the same hand, the upper part of my leg always slightly goes down.
06:20I'm usually not sitting like this, with the upper part of my leg being parallel to the ground.
06:28And my knee, my kneecap, pretty much is, say, almost above my ankle.
06:40So, my kneecap is not above the middle part of my foot, but above my ankle.
06:50And that also helps the potential for movement from ankle and leg.
06:56I mean, there's tons of ways to still think about pedal adjustments in itself.
07:02What usually kills me is if the beater distance is like that.
07:09Because that really doesn't give you a lot of potential for accents and for loud playing.
07:16On the other hand, it gives you a lot of potential for fast playing, but it definitely limits your dynamic
07:22range.
07:23So you've got to really experiment with all of that and spend some time with each of these adjustments
07:29in order to find out if that all suits your requirements for the kind of music you want to play.
07:37So, think about all that and, well, look out for different pedals, different ways of adjustments.
07:47And think about the parallels between hands and feet.
07:50And I see you in the next lesson with more exercises, okay?
07:54Thank you so much.
07:55Thank you.
07:55Thank you.
