The bass drum pedal is a thing of beauty. Mine is a Pearl model that uses a short chain, not unlike a bicycle chain, to turn a downward pedal motion into forward beater strikes.

The bass drum itself is sometimes called a “kick” drum but that term is misleading.  The drummer uses his or her leg, ankle, heel and toe to activate a pedal whose beater strikes the bass drum head. No kicking allowed.

The Ludwig and Sonor drum companies came up with this innovation in the early 1900s.

The pedal has probably saved a lot of sore backs for drummers who may have had to carry the drum around previously, or put it on a stand and whack it.

Independence!

Most importantly, once you can strike the bass drum with your foot pedal, it frees up your other limbs to play drums, cymbals, cowbells, woodblocks, gongs and whatever other percussion doodads you have added to your kit. Including the hi-hat, which sports two cymbals also operated by a pedal.

The ability of your two feet and two hands to play jointly and separately is called “independence.” With practice, your brain hives off new areas dedicated to each limb. This allows the drummer to carry out a beat with one limb, for example, and improvise independently with another at the same time. Independence also helps if you are operating with less than four limbs. For example, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen made a successful comeback with the band after losing his right arm in a car crash.

I bet the guy who invented the bass drum pedal never thought of independent limbs and a bigger brain. He probably just had a sore back.

Driving the beat and more…

As drummers developed virtuosity on single or double bass drum pedals, such as those in the heavy metal genre, this invention gave new meaning to the term: “put the pedal to the metal.” The bass drum really does drive the beat, and can deliver both sensitive and thundering musicality.

After a long drumming layoff, I was getting back into the game with my snare drum and some classic solos. I added the hi-hat to the mix, with its brilliant Sabian cymbals. Now it was time to unpack the bass drum from its case.

It’s a 1980s-vintage Rogers drum, with a golden five-ply shell (of maple?) and an Evans batter head. The twisted story of this old drum and its kit would be told at a later date.

Two swivel-adjusted props keep the drum fixed while you play it. Without the props, the drum would slide forward. I like the Rogers props better than the Ludwig style as they give better directional traction.

The pitch of each head can be adjusted by tightening or loosening the lug screws. Some drummers muffle the batter head and may remove the non-batter head for a harder sound. This drum had a nice deep thump to it so I decided to leave it alone.

It’s good to remember that the modern bass drum is reasonably portable. I know for a fact that it will fit in the front seat of a 1971 blue VW Superbeetle, while the rest of the kit is stowed in the back seat.

“Hot” drumming

I was practicing drums again in my older daughter’s former bedroom during a summer heat wave. When she was not delivering front-line medical care, Nadine was sometimes in our younger daughter’s former room next door sewing masks during the lockdown. The air-conditioning did not reach the third floor so my practice sessions qualified as hot drumming.

I decided to illustrate the concept of independence. My plan was to use the bass drum and hi-hat beats to underscore the musicality of one of composer Anthony Cirone’s snare drum etudes.

Next door, the renovation crew had installed the roof and siding and were working inside, so there was no one but the birds and my spouse to hear as I put the pedal to the metal.