Tiger Bill Reviews

Double Bass Drumming

DVD

By Joe Franco

Joe Franco is a drummer whose experience includes recording albums and touring with the Good Rats, Chilliwack, Fiona, Twisted Sister, Leslie West, and others. His Double Bass Drumming DVD is based on his best-selling book of the same name. Here, we'll check out the DVD.

Chapters

1 - Balance: Covers balance on the drum stool and includes an exercise to introduce the beginning to balance and double bass drumming using the hi-hat as the timekeeper.

2 - Left Foot Lead: Using the single stroke roll on the double bass.

3 - Right Foot Lead: Using the single stroke roll on the double bass.

4 - Single Stroke System: Joe explains and demonstrates the basis of his system of playing double bass, which uses a right lead playing his right foot on the downbeats and filling in the upbeats with his left foot.

5 - Sixteenth Note Patterns: Joe plays 20 of his double bass drum patterns, which are also shown in written notation at the bottom of the screen. Includes various sticking patterns as played against double bass in the feet.

6 - Hand-Foot Combination Patterns: Joe the right lead system (he calls his single stroke system) to show his application of sixteenth note patterns broken up in various combinations between hands and feet.

7 - Thirty-Second Notes: In this segment, Joe plays sixteenth note patterns with his right hand and foot and then fills in with his left foot, creating thirty-second note patterns.

8 - Double Bass Shuffles: The double bass is applied to various shuffle patterns in both slow and fast tempos.

9 - Single Stroke Triplets: Eighth note triplets with the feet are played against a basic quarter groove pattern with the hands.

10 - Triplet Patterns: Joe demonstrates various eighth note triplet patterns on double bass against quarter note ride patterns in the hands. Written notation is again shown at the bottom of the screen.

11 - Hand-Foot Triplet Combination Patterns: This segment covers groove and fill patterns based on eighth note triplets in slow and fast tempos.

12 - S ixteenth Note Triplets: Joe applies his single stroke system to grooves and fills using sixteenth note triplets.

13 - Four-Stroke Ruff: Various breakdowns of the four-stroke ruff between hands and feet are shown.

14 - Substitution Concepts: This segment gives you some ideas of what can be done by substituting various portions of a patterns. Included is substituting a sixteenth note triplet for two sixteenth notes in a sixteenth note fill, substituting two thirty second notes for one sixteenth note, and more.

15 - Assorted Patterns: Joe plays various grooves at different tempos to demonstration the basic concepts covered up to this point.

Live Solos/Credits: Drum solo footage taken from some of Joe's live performances.

Double Bass Drumming: The Bottom Line
If you're an experienced double bass player looking to expand your repertoire and/or learn the fine skills of double bass speed technique, this DVD isn't for you. I do recommend it for newcomers to the double bass, as the exercises on this DVD will provide you with a solid foundation in double bass drumming.

While this DVD is a good value at its retail price of $29.95, it is available at a discount online at: Joe Franco Double Bass Drumming