(Probably) The Other Reason Why I’m Running

As a drummer, I have to admit one of my greatest frustrations – the double bass pedal.

For so long I have been amazed at other drummers playing powerful rock beats using two bass pedals with the greatest of ease, as if it was natural to them. I have tried using them a couple of times, but I can’t seem to get the coordination with my left foot and my arms. Most of the time I end up being pissed off because I can’t seem to get it right. However, I saw a website that allows a drummer to add double pedal effects using only a single foot pedal. The disadvantage to this is that there is some sort of foot switch involved that might annoy the drummer. So I had to scrap that idea. Come to think of it, if you’re going to use double bass in your tracks, might as well use two pedals instead of “cheating it” into a single one.

I asked one friend of mine a long time ago (who’s an expert in percussion, by the way) for some tips and tricks that he used to master the art of the double pedal. His answer was simple – try running.

I have been running for a very long time now and I have yet to see whether running does help an aspirant to master the double pedal. Unfortunately, I haven’t gone behind a real drum set for a long time now, and I feel that my skills are getting rusty. Hence, I need practice once again. Then I can test whether my friend’s tip is correct. If I think about it, maybe he is right in some sense, because leg coordination is also key in running. But that remains to be tested. Hopefully by the time I’m able to jam again, I can experiment on placing “additional kicks”.

So did I get into running because I want to sharpen my drumming skills? Far-fetched and odd, I have to agree. But that seems like a pretty viable answer. And if running does help hone your double bass skills, then I’m definitely running more. =)

Hopefully, with some persistence, I’ll be able to follow the footsteps of some of my drumming gods:

Robert dela Cruz (of Skychurch and Queso);

Andrea Vadrucci (a YouTube sensation);

Raymond Herrera (originally from Fear Factory, now with Arkaea);

Joey Jordison (of Slipknot);

Mike Portnoy (of Dream Theater and Avenged Sevenfold); and

Neil Peart (of Rush).

Hindi naman masama mangarap, ‘di ba. =)

I miss drumming already. Just to share, here’s me drumming 4 years ago.