I got you homie. I’m a jazz guy and don’t play double pedal so can’t really give specific technique examples there but I can help you with your left foot hi-hat. First it’s important to examine the role of hi-hat at a higher level. 90% of music calls for time keeping in hi-hat. (A big part of getting deeper with drumming is being able to compartmentalize the role of each drum while not attaching yourself to those roles, however it’s first important to study the roles.)
For exercises here’s what I worked on to develop my left foot:
-Pick an easy and slow beat for you to play between kick, snare, ride, then start playing the hi hat foot chick on the following beats: quarter notes, 8th notes, on 2&4, offbeat quarter notes, & quarter note triplets. The important thing is to keep that same kick,snare,ride beat the same. If you haven’t practiced this before it’s going to be trickier than it sounds and that’s ok. Allow yourself to struggle as that’s part of the process. Work on these for a few weeks. You want to get to a point where you can smoothly play several measures of quarter notes, then easily switch to 8th notes, quarter note triplets, on the off beat, etc. Once you’ve mastered this move on to the next step
-Do the same left foot exercises but pick a new drum beat to play them to. Feel free to challenge yourself and get creative here. These simple hi-hat subdivisions against various beats will cover 90% or more of anything you would ever need to do with your left foot
-The theme thus far has been that the left foot on the hi-hat serves the role as a timekeeper, let’s stretch this concept. Now start working on various paradiddle exercises on your snare drum while permutating through the same hi hat patterns mentioned above. If you’re looking to really, really develop your coordination I recommend starting to do paradiddles between the snare with one of your hands and the kick drum while keeping constant beat with the left foot. Again, in 90% of scenarios your left foot needs to be rock solid. You will notice that eventually your left foot will just automatically start going and you can do things with the rest of your limbs quite easily while your left foot is just bopping away.
Often times it’s necessary to simplify things dramatically in order to progress. One step back two steps forward. If you find yourself having a tough time with the above exercises then put the sticks down and just work on your feet. Work on paradiddles, singles, and a basic 3/4 polyrhythm. Make sure to alternate which foot is the lead.
As a general rule of thumb for progressing into 4 way coordination I recommend picking specific beats you want to learn, transcribe them by ear, then learn each limb of the beat on it’s own. Don’t worry about putting it all together yet. So first nail the right hand part, then just get the left hand part, then the left foot, then right foot. Then try doing the two easiest of those rhythms together at the same time, maybe the left foot and right hand are easiest so do those together. Then change one of those limbs for another. You’re basically going to make sure that you can play the beat on any combination of two limbs, then three, and then finally bring it all together. This will give you a deep understanding of how the entire interrelates. The drum genius app has a lot of cool beats you can slow down and work on these ideas.
