This manual is a training system built around Bobby Rondinelli and Michael Lauren’s The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming (Revised Edition), hereafter cited as R&L. The source book is an encyclopedia of exercises across 23 chapters; it supplies material and a handful of practice principles, but no session structure, no tempos and no criteria for knowing when to move on. This manual fills that gap with a method wrapped around the book.
Two headline goals shape everything that follows: strength (evenness and endurance between the feet, weak foot brought up to match the strong foot) and accuracy (clean articulation and rhythmic placement, especially where the feet meet the hands). Speed is a downstream effect, not a target.
Notice something in the manual that looks wrong or does not match the source book? Please file an issue at https://github.com/rcook/double-bass-drumming-training-manual/issues.
Read this section before any other. It is the difference between a manual you follow for years and one you give up on in six weeks.
The goal is not to complete every exercise at every tempo. The source book is an encyclopedia—a reference—and no serious drummer works through a reference exhaustively. Attempting to do so is a common failure mode with well-regarded pedagogical books (Stone’s Stick Control, Nelson’s Rhythm Guitar 365 and many others): the material is excellent, but the felt obligation to complete every exercise before moving on turns steady practice into a race the student inevitably loses. This manual is deliberately designed to avoid that trap.
The best training regimen is the one you actually follow. A modest programme sustained for years produces better results than an ambitious one abandoned in two months. Every rule in this manual—the flexible session template, the “done for now” advancement criterion, the small active-chapter set, the exit rules for boredom and plateau—exists to keep you practising rather than to maximize what you cover.
Progress is not tied to specific days. The manual is calibrated around a rough baseline of roughly 30 minutes a day, roughly five days a week—with the honest expectation that some sessions run longer, some run shorter, some weeks have more days and some have fewer. Life happens. A missed day is not a setback and does not require making up. A missed week is not a setback. The only thing that matters is that you come back.
Adjust the programme to your commitment, not the other way around. If your realistic budget is significantly different from the baseline, the manual still applies—you just change the rate, not the method:
Multiple sessions in one day are fine. If you have the time and the appetite, a second (or third) session later in the day is welcome—log each as its own entry in the session log with the same date, and treat each independently for verdicts and bpm probes. The one thing that does not happen twice in a day is a tempo advancement: only sessions on different practice days chain towards the two-pass rule (§4). The reason is that the second pass is meant to confirm the tempo held after time away from the kit—a same-day repeat measures roughly the same thing as the first attempt.
Signs the programme is drifting towards unsustainable territory. If any of these show up, adjust before they compound:
Guilt is not a training tool. The manual has no schedule for you to fall behind on. There is no such thing as “catching up”—the working state in your tracking document is exactly where you left it, and that is the state you resume from. How much you drop back on return depends on how long you were away:
| Away for | Do this on return |
|---|---|
| Roughly a week or less | For every active exercise, drop the current bpm by one increment for that material type (§4: −4 bpm for warm-ups and feet-only exercises, −2 to −3 bpm for beats and fills played in context with hands). Concretely, if Ex. 1.1 was at 68 bpm before the break, resume at 64 bpm; if a Ch. 2 beat was at 74 bpm, resume at 72. Do the 1-minute clean pass at that reduced tempo and continue. |
| Roughly a month | Drop each active exercise back to the last pass bpm recorded in your per-chapter working state (§8)—the tempo you last actually cleared, not the current bpm you were probing towards. Hold that tempo for two consecutive practice sessions (§4) before probing up again. |
| Roughly a year, or you no longer remember where you were | Reset the current bpm on every active exercise to its starting bpm from the chapter sheet, and run the chapter’s “Your first session” walkthrough again (for R&L Ch. 1, see chapter-01.md). The last pass bpm column in your tracking document stays as a memory of where you got to before—it is not today’s ceiling. |
None of this is a penalty. It is the honest state of your body after time off. The rule is deliberately generous on the short end and pragmatic on the long end—body memory returns fast, but the ceiling does not, and pushing yesterday’s ceiling on today’s feet is how injury and discouragement enter the programme.
Adjust the rules themselves when needed. Everything below this section is a default, not a commandment. If a specific rule fights against sustainability rather than supporting it, change the rule.
These are non-negotiable and apply to every session, regardless of duration or focus.
Throughout this manual, foot assignment is described as strong foot and weak foot rather than right foot and left foot. The reason is that “right” and “left” are not stable across players—a right-footed player leads with the right foot; a left-footed player leads with the left. Strong/weak sidesteps the handedness question and points at the thing the training actually cares about (which foot leads, which foot is being brought up to match).
R&L’s own notation uses BD I and BD II on the staff key (see the “Key” panel on the intro page of either edition). In practice:
When R&L’s prose (or a chapter sheet in this manual) refers to a “right-foot lead”, read it as strong-foot lead unless you are left-footed, in which case invert. The same convention applies to the hands: strong hand and weak hand stand in for right/left where the manual describes hand orchestration (e.g. which hand plays snare vs. tom in a fill). When a specific limb is genuinely meant (for instance, the hi-hat pedal is played by the weak foot on a conventional setup regardless of handedness, so the hi-hat orchestration in R&L Ch. 20 is a weak-foot doubling), that will be called out explicitly rather than folded into the strong/weak scheme.
This manual is fully compatible with the Original Edition of R&L for Stages 1–5. Everything in §§1–4 and §§6–11—the tempo-target and clean-pass rule, the session template, the tracking format, the starter walkthrough in §11—applies unchanged regardless of which edition you own. The differences between the two editions are contained and enumerated below.
Edition policy. The manual treats the Revised Edition of R&L as authoritative by default. Individual exercises where the two editions disagree—and the Original Edition appears to be correct—are called out at the exercise level in the relevant chapter sheet. Do not assume the two editions agree; where the sheet says nothing, they do.
Confirmed differences between the two editions.
Working from the Original Edition.
Notation in the manual assumes a particular kit configuration; the conventions below are the ones worth calling out explicitly. Chapter sheets in later stages may add their own kit-setup notes when a chapter demands a specific rig; those live on the chapter sheet, not here.
Hi-hat under double-bass work. From Stage 2 onwards (R&L Ch. 2+), both feet are committed to bass drum pedals—the left foot plays BD II inside the doubled-16th patterns Ch. 2 introduces, and the same is true through the rest of the 16th-note density ladder (Ch. 2–5) and the triplet material (Ch. 6, 7). R&L notates hi-hat as x (closed) throughout the Ch. 2 Beats, but with the left foot on BD II you cannot pedal the hi-hat closed. The standard drummer’s answer in double-bass rock and metal contexts (R&L’s genre) is a dry-closed clutch: tighten the hi-hat clutch so the top and bottom cymbals sit touching but not clamped hard, with no foot pressure required. This produces a chick that reads as closed and matches the x notation, leaving both feet free for bass-drum work.
BD II ↔ hi-hat pedal foot-switching is a real technique and appears in advanced double-bass repertoire, but the R&L Ch. 2 Beats do not ask for it—do not over-scope your practice by trying to alternate the left foot between BD II and the hi-hat pedal. The clutch setting does the work.
This is the operational definition of “done for now”.
Every exercise is worked at two numbers: a starting bpm (slow enough to play cleanly today) and a target bpm (a provisional ceiling for this phase of learning). Work happens between the two.
Some exercises additionally have a third number: an unlock bpm, the threshold that opens the next stage of the manual. It is set below target bpm on purpose—the next stage should open when your feet are ready to work its material, not when you have exhausted the current stage. The exercise keeps advancing towards its target bpm after unlock; the unlock bpm is a gate, not a ceiling. Only exercises that gate a stage transition carry one; the per-chapter sheet lists which exercises those are and what their unlock bpm is (see §5 for the stage-by-stage picture).
Unlock bpm is a floor, not a landing target: keep the normal bpm increment (see the advancement rule below) even when it overshoots. For example, on the R&L Ch. 1 Core exercises the ladder from 60 bpm at +4 bpm reaches 88, then 92—92 counts as clearing a 90 bpm unlock. Do not shrink the last increment to land exactly on the unlock number.
A clean pass is the exercise played unbroken for 1 minute at a given bpm, with:
Advancement rule: when the current bpm yields a clean pass in two consecutive practice sessions, raise the metronome by a small increment. The two sessions are the ones in which you actually work this exercise, not calendar practice days—intervening sessions where you skip it do not break the streak. Same-day repeats do not count: the second pass is meant to confirm the tempo held after time away from the kit. Multi-session days are still welcome for other reasons (§2). Typical increments:
Regression rule: if a clean pass fails after an increment, drop back one increment and rebuild from there. Regression is data, not failure—it is how you learn where the real ceiling is today.
near rule: a near at the current bpm neither advances nor regresses, but it resets the two-pass streak to zero. If you had one pass on the board at the current bpm and log a near on your next session, the streak restarts: the next pass counts as your first, not your second. near exists to record sessions where something specific was off—accent shape, tempo drift, a couple of dropped notes—but not badly enough to honestly call the session a fail and drop back an increment. off-kit verdicts sit outside the streak entirely and do neither of these things (see §7 off-kit session).
Reaching target is a signal, not a stop. When your last pass bpm on an exercise reaches or exceeds the target bpm on its chapter sheet, keep advancing per the advancement rule above if the material still feels clean. Target is a provisional ceiling for this phase of learning, not a hard cap—probing past it is real evidence the exercise is well consolidated. Do not clamp current bpm at target. If clean passes hold above target for ~2 weeks, either revise the sheet’s target upward (starting and target bpm are guide values per the table below and can be revised with real data) or accept that the exercise has plateaued at a higher level. If probing past target starts producing near or fail, the target was correctly calibrated and the exercise has reached its plateau for this phase.
Provisional starting and target bpm by material type. These numbers are guide values, not commitments. Revise them once you have two weeks of real data. Starting bpm is where you begin the first time you touch an exercise; target bpm is the provisional ceiling for this phase of learning.
| Material | Start | Target |
|---|---|---|
| R&L Ch. 1 warm-ups and R&L Ch. 15, 16, 18 feet-only work | 60 bpm | ~120 bpm |
| 16th-note beats (R&L Ch. 2–5) | 50 bpm | ~110 bpm |
| Triplet material (R&L Ch. 6, 7, 18, 19), 8th-note-triplet feel | 40 bpm | ~110 bpm |
| 32nd-note material (R&L Ch. 8) | 40 bpm | no aspirational target—this chapter is a probe (see §5, Stage 4) |
If the published starting bpm is too fast for a clean pass today, drop lower until you can play cleanly. That is your real starting bpm.
Per-chapter working sheets pick these up as their defaults. A sheet may adjust the starting bpm for a specific exercise if the material is unusually demanding, but the material-type default is the norm.
There is no lifetime “final” bpm. Targets exist per phase of learning. “Done for now” is not “done forever”—you revisit the same exercises with new targets as you progress through the stages in §5.
The 23 chapters do not need to be worked in strict order. They are grouped into six stages, each with rules for what unlocks the next.
Stage-transition unlocks. Each stage transition is gated by an unlock bpm on one or more exercises—the concrete criterion for opening the next stage, per §4. The scheme:
Concrete unlock criteria (staging table). Each row will migrate to its chapter sheet’s “Moving on to…” section once that sheet is filled in; for now the manual carries them here so the numbers are visible while the chapter sheets are still skeletons.
| Transition | Type | Gate exercise(s) | Unlock bpm | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 → 2 | Between-stage | Ex. 1.1, Ex. 1.10 and Ex. 1.11 | 90 (each) | 25% below the 120 bpm warm-up target; the scheme’s baseline example. Concrete text in chapter-01.md “Moving on to Stage 2”. |
| Ch. 2 → 3 | Within-stage | Ex. 2.10 (Beats, highest doubled-16th density per bar — 2& + 2a and 4& + 4a) | 82 | 25% below the 110 bpm 16th-note-beats target; Ex. 2.10 has the highest doubled-16th density per bar of any Ch. 2 Core exercise (two events per bar vs. one for Ex. 2.5 and Ex. 2.7), so it also preps 3-consecutive-16ths in Ch. 3. |
| Ch. 3 → 4 | Within-stage | Ex. 3.12 (Beats, groove-context reinforcement) | 82 | 25% below the 110 bpm 16th-note-beats target; Ex. 3.12 represents chapter maturity in context and preps 4-consecutive-16ths in Ch. 4. |
| Ch. 4 → 5 | Within-stage | Ex. 4.12 (Beats, sustained four-16th runs in a different placement) | 82 | 25% below the 110 bpm 16th-note-beats target; Ex. 4.12 preps 5-to-16-consecutive-16ths in Ch. 5. |
| Stage 2 → 3 | Between-stage | Ex. 1.11 at 100 bpm; Ex. 5.13 (Beats, built on longer 16th runs) at 88 bpm | 100 and 88 | Two gates. Ex. 1.11 is the direct triplet prep (17% below its 120 bpm target—tighter than default because between-stage and directly on the incoming material type). Ex. 5.13 checks Stage 2 maturity in context (20% below its 110 bpm target—tighter than default because between-stage). Concrete text will land in chapter-05.md “Moving on to Stage 3” when that sheet is filled in. |
Stage 3 internal (Ch. 6 → 7) and every transition at Stage 4, 5 or 6 is deferred until those chapter sheets get their skeleton fill.
Stage 1—Foundation (R&L Ch. 1). There is exactly one Stage 1 chapter—R&L Ch. 1, Starters. Always active as warm-up. This chapter is never fully graduated out of; the exercises just get faster and stay in rotation for the life of the manual.
Stage 2—16th-note density ladder (R&L Ch. 2 → 3 → 4 → 5). Worked in strict sequence because they explicitly build on each other: two consecutive 16ths, three consecutive 16ths, four consecutive 16ths, then five-to-sixteen consecutive 16ths. Unlocked when Ex. 1.1, Ex. 1.10 and Ex. 1.11 all hold 90 bpm cleanly (their unlock bpm—see §4—reached via two consecutive pass sessions at 90 bpm per exercise). This is a floor, not a ceiling: the Ch. 1 Core exercises keep advancing towards their 120 bpm target in the warm-up block after Stage 2 opens. Within-stage transitions (Ch. 2 → 3, 3 → 4, 4 → 5) each gate on one exercise per the scheme above; the concrete numbers are in the staging table.
Stage 3—Triplets (R&L Ch. 6, 7). Between-stage unlock per the scheme above; the concrete gate exercises and unlock bpm are in the staging table. Sequential within the stage—8th-note triplets first, then 16th-note triplets; the Ch. 6 → 7 within-stage transition is deferred until those chapter sheets are filled in.
Stage 4—Density extremes (R&L Ch. 8). Treated as a probe, not a mastery target. That means: work the chapter in short exposures spread across many sessions, and never let it become the focus of a whole training phase the way Stages 2 and 3 do. “Visit; do not camp” says the same thing—drop in on Ch. 8 for a session or two, feel the 32nd-note subdivision at whatever bpm you can play cleanly, log a verdict and go back to your normal focus chapter. There is no bpm target for this chapter; there is no criterion for “done”; the point is exposure so that when 32nd-note figures show up in Stage 5+ material, they are not foreign.
Stage 5—Applications (R&L Ch. 9 blues, R&L Ch. 10 8th notes, R&L Ch. 11–13 power threes and linear cross rhythms and R&L Ch. 14 fast track). Picked up interleaved with Stage 2 and Stage 3 work to keep the practice musical rather than drills-only.
Stage 6—Rondinelli additions (R&L Ch. 15–23). Deferred until Stages 2 and 3 are solid. Within Stage 6, follow the book order: 15 (starters and doubles) → 16 (feet-only doubles) → 17 (binary) → 18 (feet-only triplets) → 19 (ternary) → 20 (skiplets) → 21 (turnarounds) → 22 (ladder) → 23 (hands-doubles, feet-singles). These chapters appear only in the Revised Edition of R&L; see §3.2 if you are working from the Original Edition.
The active-chapters rule. At any given time, R&L Ch. 1 (the sole Stage 1 chapter) is active as your warm-up, alongside 0, 1 or 2 chapters from a later stage. Never more than three chapters active simultaneously. Attention diluted across the whole book is what makes an encyclopedia unusable—the training manual exists to prevent that.
The template has fixed proportions and elastic duration. It fits a 15-minute session as well as a 90-minute session; the blocks just scale.
Worked example—the 30-minute baseline session:
| Block | Time | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | 7–8 min | Current R&L Ch. 1 exercises, then a slow-to-target ramp on one weak-foot pattern |
| Focus | 15 min | One exercise from your current Stage 2+ chapter: hold current bpm for the 1-minute clean pass, then probe one increment up |
| Application | 5–6 min | The focus material inside a beat or fill from the same chapter |
| Cool-down | 2 min | Slow, musical, no metronome |
Other durations follow the same proportions. A 60-minute session doubles every block; a 15-minute session halves them and drops the application block if needed.
Minimum useful session depends on where you are in the progression (§5). In Stage 1, when R&L Ch. 1 is your only active chapter and there is no focus block yet, it is just the Ch. 1 Core warm-up—about 8 minutes (see chapter-01.md). From Stage 2 onwards, when a focus block joins, the minimum useful session is about 15 minutes: warm-up plus one focus rep, dropping the application and cool-down blocks if the time is not there. Short sessions still count—the authors say so in R&L Ch. 1 and it is worth taking them at their word.
This section is the mechanical loop for a single session. It is deliberately concrete—you should be able to sit down at the kit and follow it without improvising. The chapter-specific sheets tell you what to play; this section tells you what to do.
The warm-up block is your Ch. 1 practice — the whole session in Stage 1, and the opening ~7–8 min of the three-block template from Stage 2 onwards. Which Ch. 1 exercises constitute the block, and their per-exercise durations, are set by chapter-01.md (Core list, Rotation list, per-exercise minutes; see “After Stage 2 unlocks” in that sheet for how Rotation cadence drops once Ch. 2 becomes active). The block may contain a single exercise (early Stage 1) or all three Core exercises (Stage 2+), sometimes plus one Rotation exercise on longer days. The steps below apply per exercise inside the block; run them in order for each Ch. 1 exercise the sheet names.
pass, near or fail. Add a log entry: 1.<exercise> <bpm> bpm <duration> min <verdict> <note>, where <duration> is the per-exercise time you actually spent (see §8 for the full log format, including the tabular shape most students will use). The note starts with a short tag—typical tags are even, steady, weak-foot, rushed, dragging, clean, flabby—and may be followed by a short free-form comment when a single word is not enough. Example tag-only: pass even. Example tag plus prose: pass even, click clear throughout. Pick whatever will remind you what happened when you read the log next week.<chapter>.<exercise> <bpm> bpm <duration> min <verdict> <note> (see §8 for the full log format, including the tag-plus-optional-prose convention for the note and the tabular shape most students will use). The bpm in the log entry is the highest bpm at which you achieved a clean pass during the session—call this the session ceiling. A failed or near probe above the ceiling does not produce its own log entry. If you did not pass at any bpm (i.e. the current bpm’s verdict was near or fail), log the current bpm with that verdict. One log entry per exercise per session.last pass bpm to the session ceiling and advance current bpm per the rule spelled out in §8. If the session’s starting bpm was fail, apply the §4 regression rule instead; you tried and learned. If it was near, no regression — the §4 near rule applies: current bpm is unchanged, but the two-pass streak resets to zero.Same shape as the focus block, but the material is a beat or fill from the same chapter rather than a warm-up-style pattern. Look up bpm → set metronome → set timer → play → decide → log. The clean-pass rule still applies. The application block is shorter (~5–6 min in a 30-min session); do not skip it in favour of extending the focus block—putting the material into a beat or fill is where it becomes drumming rather than a drill.
No metronome, no timer. Play something musical for a couple of minutes. Nothing to log. This block exists to remind you that the point of the previous 25 minutes is drumming, not drills.
You have no historical bpm to look up. Use the starting bpm from the chapter sheet for every exercise, skip the probe step in the focus and application blocks and use the whole block time to hold the starting bpm cleanly. On your second session you have data and the normal loop kicks in.
For a Stage 2+ minimum-useful session (~15 min; see §6), keep the warm-up and focus blocks, skip the application and cool-down and stop cleanly. In Stage 1, when Ch. 1 is your only active chapter and there is no focus block yet, the minimum-useful session is the Ch. 1 Core warm-up itself (~8 min; see chapter-01.md). A shortened session that gets logged is more useful than an ambitious one that gets abandoned.
You do not always have to be at the kit. Tapping the exercise on the floor, on your leg or on a practice pad is legitimate practice and is called out as such in §3 and in chapter-01.md. It is how the pattern gets into the body without the volume overhead, and it lets you keep practising on days you cannot get to the kit.
Two things about off-kit work are worth knowing so you do not misread the results:
Logging an off-kit session is optional. If you want it to show up in your log—as a record of a rep, or so you can see over time how often you were away from the kit—use the normal log line format (§8) and add the tag off-kit in the note field. Verdicts on off-kit sessions are informational; do not use them to advance or regress the current bpm.
Progress is tracked in a document you own and maintain yourself, kept outside this repository. Google Docs is the recommended format because it works on a phone during breaks, syncs across devices and supports inline comments where you want to leave yourself a note. A Word document or a plain text file is fine—the tool does not matter; the structure does. This project deliberately does not commit anyone’s log to git.
Use a single master document for the whole training journey. A single document is faster to search, easier to see trends in and cheaper to open mid-session.
The document has four sections, in this order:
1. Header block. Kept short. Contains your name if you want it, your start date and your current active chapters (R&L Ch. 1 plus the 0, 1 or 2 later-stage chapters you are working right now, per §5). Update the active chapters whenever they change.
2. Session log. The rolling record of what you practised. Newest entries at the top so the current state is always visible without scrolling. The recommended shape is a single table with one row per exercise-session. A table sorts and filters cleanly (all rows for one exercise in one view, all rows for one date grouped by the date column) and works equally well in Google Docs, Sheets, plain text and Markdown.
Columns, in order:
YYYY-MM-DD.AM / PM or 1 / 2 to distinguish that day’s sessions at a glance. Only sessions on different practice days chain towards the two-pass advancement rule (§4); the Session column is purely for disambiguation, not for advancement counting.chapter.exercise (e.g. 1.10, 2.5).3 min). Useful data on its own—it surfaces whether you are actually giving each exercise its intended block time.pass / near / fail per the clean-pass rule (§4).even, steady, weak-foot, rushed, dragging, clean, flabby, off-kit (see §7 “Off-kit session”). A short free-form comment may follow the tag where a single word is not enough. Keep the trailing prose brief; the log is for pattern-spotting, not journalling.A worked example—five rows covering two sessions:
| Date | Session | Exercise | bpm | Duration | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-01 | 1.7 | 88 bpm | 5 min | pass | even | |
| 2026-08-01 | 1.11 | 76 bpm | 4 min | near | weak-foot, dropped notes in the last 20 s | |
| 2026-08-01 | 2.5 | 70 bpm | 15 min | fail | dragging | |
| 2026-07-30 | 1.7 | 84 bpm | 8 min | pass | steady | |
| 2026-07-30 | 2.5 | 68 bpm | 15 min | pass | clean |
If you have not practised an exercise in a given session, do not write a row for it. The log is a record of what happened, not a checklist of what should have happened.
If a plain-text file (rather than a table-capable tool) is easier for you, the same information laid out as one date header per session with the exercise lines underneath is fine—use whichever fits your tool:
2026-07-30
1.7 84 bpm 8 min pass steady
2.5 68 bpm 15 min pass clean
For same-day sessions in this form, put the marker after the date (2026-07-30 AM, 2026-07-30 PM).
3. Per-chapter working state. One subsection per active chapter, showing where you are right now on each exercise in that chapter—the state you look up between sessions to answer “what bpm am I on for Ex. 2.5?”. Each row: exercise number, current working bpm, unlock bpm (blank if the exercise does not gate a stage transition—see §4), target bpm, last pass bpm, last pass date.
The current bpm and the last pass bpm can differ, and the update procedure after each session for an exercise is:
last pass bpm ← this session’s ceiling (the highest bpm at which you had a clean pass; the same value that goes in the log entry’s bpm field). If the session produced no clean pass at any bpm (near or fail at the current bpm and no cleanly-passed probe below), leave last pass bpm unchanged.current bpm ← follows one of two rules depending on the exercise’s prior history. This is the key place the working state and the log diverge, so both cases are spelled out:
current bpm to this session’s ceiling directly. You have one clean pass at that tempo, waiting for confirmation next session.current bpm to min(this session's ceiling, previous session's ceiling) + one increment — that is, one increment past the highest bpm cleared cleanly in both this session and the previous session. If the previous session produced no clean pass (near or fail verdict, no ceiling), skip it and use the most recent prior session that did have a clean pass. If no prior session had a clean pass, treat this session as first-ever and apply the rule above.Under hold-only sessions (see §7 focus block — no within-session probing; R&L Ch. 1 works this way) the two ceilings match and current bpm advances every second session. Under hold-and-probe (Ch. 2 onward) they can diverge, and current bpm trails the ceiling by one increment because the two-pass rule (§4) requires a bpm to be cleared in two consecutive sessions before the working state commits to it.
last pass date ← today, if the session produced a clean pass at any bpm. Otherwise leave unchanged.fail. If the session’s starting bpm was fail, apply the §4 regression rule (drop current bpm by one increment) and leave last pass bpm unchanged.near at the starting bpm. Per the §4 near rule: no regression. current bpm is unchanged, but the two-pass streak resets to zero — the next pass at current bpm counts as the first of a fresh streak, not the second of the existing one. This is distinct from fail, which does drop current bpm.current bpm and last pass bpm continue to advance per the rules above regardless of target. See §4 “Reaching target is a signal, not a stop” for how to think about target-revision once you have data past it.When a chapter drops out of the active list, move its subsection to the archive.
4. Archive. Retired chapters, moved here when they drop out of the active list. Preserves history without cluttering the working view. Structure matches the per-chapter working state above.
This is a template shape, not a rigid schema. If you prefer a slightly different arrangement, that is fine as long as the four functions—identity, log, working state, archive—are all present.
Short prescriptive answers for the situations that make a beginner give up:
You have read the method. Here is what to do right now.
That is the full loop. Every subsequent session follows the same shape, with your tracking document providing the previous bpm to look up. Stage 2 unlocks when Ex. 1.1, Ex. 1.10 and Ex. 1.11 all reach their unlock bpm of 90 bpm (two consecutive pass sessions at 90 bpm per exercise); the Ch. 1 Core keeps advancing towards its 120 bpm target as your warm-up after Stage 2 opens. See §5, Stage 2.
Copy everything between the two ═══ lines into your tracking document, then replace the <placeholders>. The parenthetical rubrics under each section are guidance; delete them once you have understood what goes there.
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# Double Bass Drumming Training—tracking document
**Name:** <your name, or leave blank>
**Start date:** <YYYY-MM-DD, the date of your first session>
**Active chapters:**
- Stage 1 warm-up: R&L Ch. 1—Starters
- Later-stage focus: (none yet—unlocks when Ex. 1.1, Ex. 1.10 and Ex. 1.11 all reach their unlock bpm (90 bpm), per approach.md §5)
(Rubric: this header block is the single "what am I working on right now?" reference. Update the active chapters whenever they change. Keep it short—everything else lives in the sections below.)
---
## Session log
(Rubric: rolling record of what you actually practised, newest row at the top. The recommended shape is a table with one row per exercise-session and these columns: **Date** (ISO 8601), **Session** (optional; blank in the normal case, filled with a short marker like `AM` / `PM` or `1` / `2` only when you practised more than once on the same day), **Exercise** (`chapter.exercise`), **bpm**, **Duration** (per-exercise time, e.g. `3 min`), **Verdict** (`pass` / `near` / `fail`), **Note** (a short tag—`even`, `steady`, `weak-foot`, `rushed`, `dragging`, `clean`, `off-kit`—optionally followed by a short free-form comment). Only log what you actually practised. See approach.md §8 for the full description and the plain-text-file alternative shape.)
| Date | Session | Exercise | bpm | Duration | Verdict | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
(No entries yet. Your first session will populate this.)
---
## Per-chapter working state
(Rubric: one subsection per active chapter, showing your current bpm for each exercise you have started. This is what you look up at the start of each session to answer "what bpm do I set the metronome to?". Update the current bpm when an exercise passes two consecutive practice sessions at a given bpm; drop it back one increment on a fail. The current bpm and the last pass bpm can differ—after two consecutive passes at a bpm, the current bpm advances one increment while the last pass bpm still records the tempo you actually passed at. The Unlock bpm column is filled only for exercises that gate the transition into the next stage (per the chapter sheet's "Moving on to…" section); it is blank for exercises that do not. When the current bpm reaches the unlock bpm on every gated exercise in the chapter, the next stage opens—see the chapter sheet for the transition procedure.)
### R&L Ch. 1—Starters
| Ex. | Current bpm | Unlock bpm | Target bpm | Last pass bpm | Last pass date |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1.1 | 60 | 90 | 120 | (none yet) | (none yet) |
| 1.10 | 60 | 90 | 120 | (none yet) | (none yet) |
| 1.11 | 60 | 90 | 120 | (none yet) | (none yet) |
(Add rows for Ex. 1.12 and Ex. 1.13 if you start rotating them in. See chapter-01.md for their starting and target bpm.)
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## Archive
(Rubric: chapters that have dropped out of your active list move here, preserving their per-chapter working state for reference. Empty for now—you will not touch this until Stage 2 is well underway and something ages out.)
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That is a complete tracking document for a student on day one. Once it exists, open chapter-01.md and follow the “Your first session” walkthrough.