Bobby Rock

Here’s a multi-foot pedal demonstration I did on a recent solo drumming tour of China, where my feet are playing four different rhythms, on four different sound sources, simultaneously, while my hands do some basic improvisation. This was at an informal master class of 30 to 40 teachers and more advanced students, and yet, I got the impression that they hadn’t seen much of this kind of thing before. As you’ll see, I attempted to explain everything through an interpreter. Note: Right foot plays two different rhythms on the bass drum and distortion hats; left foot plays two different rhythms on the main hi-hat and cowbell pedal (with the cowbell part doing a lightly randomized “&2&” / “&4&” rhythm; hands do some basic solo stuff around kit. The second half of this short vid demonstrates a shuffle double-hat pattern with a more intricate triplet-based ostinato with the double-pedal. Once again, the right foot doubles up on the kick pedal and distortion hat and the left takes care of the left kick pedal and main hat. But this time, I figured it might be easier just to ease into the demonstration—one sound-source at a time—rather than try to translate the action set-by-step. (Unfortunately, we only had a short clip of this solo, but you’ll get the vibe.)