Finger control for drumming can be one of the greatest assets for speed and technique. By mastering finger control you will be able to play for much longer periods of time without wearing yourself out. Whether or not you want to play fast for long periods of time like in speed metal or jazz, or you want to make your fills or solos really fly, finger control is what you should use to accomplish these things. Using your fingers to play speedy parts takes most if not all of the stress off of your wrists. By doing this you can prevent costly surgery and pain associated with tendenitus or carpol tunnels. If speed is something your interested in than this lesson is for you. This lesson is for an advanced student. If you are already familiar with the Gladstone technique and the french grip then you may be ready to master finger control.

First of all we need to make sure your technique is in order. French grip should be used if you want to get the most out of your fingers. If you want to learn more about french grip check out Dom Famularo's cyber lesson on the "french grip". You will have to use the Gladstone technique in order to master finger control. In short, it is the ability to dribble or bounce the stick on the drum or practice pad just like a basket ball is dribbled. The stick is never pulled upward at anytime. All the energy is used to push the stick down. The stick will naturally rebound off the playing surface and the kenetic energy will bring the stick back up on its own. Once the stick comes back up the fingers will push it back down again. It is almost exactly like dribbling a basketball except that your using a drum stick instead. The Gladstone technique is about controlling that rebound. Your wrist and fingers follow the stick as it comes back up but never stifling the energy. The grip should be loose so that the stick is more free to move on it's on. The best way to learn this is to get an experienced instructor who knows this technique. If you have them watch and evaluate your technique they will more than likely see things that you cannot. They will help you make the adjustments to apply the technique correctly. Watching someone that knows the technique is also a good idea. Watch their hands closely and compare them to yours. Watch their fingers and wrists. You can learn more about the Gladstone technique at Tiger Bill's website here: Building Monster Chops: Part 1 The links I provided for the french grip and the Gladstone technique are more than adaquate in explaining how they're used.

The goal of mastering finger control is that each finger become independant. In other words each finger will have the ability to move the stick on it's own independant from the other fingers. We will be using the index fingers and thumbs to hold the stick in it's pivot and so you will have the 3 back fingers on each hand (middle, ring, and pinky finger) free to use for this technique. However, in order to begin gaining this type of independance you can't just jump right into it. We have to condition your fingers slowly to gain this type of control.

SETTING UP
The following exercises should all be used with a metronome. Make sure that it is not faster than what you can keep up with consistantly for more than a minute. If you find yourself struggling to keep up, then slow it down. I say more than a minute because you should practice these excercises for several minutes non-stop. The idea is to burn correct technique into your muscle memory by repetition. It is important that you should not move to the next exercise until you have mastered the one previous to it. In other words don't begin practicing exercise #2 until you have mastered exercise #1. Each exercise is like a stepping stone that is necessary in order to get to the next one. The worst thing you can do is practice at a tempo that is too fast for you. You will only be working against yourself. Eventually when you want to go faster you will be playing how you trained. If you trained with sloppy technique then you will simply play sloppy faster. You will eventually run into a speed wall an never be able to get faster if your technique is sloppy. Starting at a slow enough tempo where you can get it perfect is the best way. This is the way to gain speed most rapidly.

EXERCISE 1
Now, using one of your hands, tap 16th notes out on the practice pad or drum using just your pinky finger. After 4 taps move to the ring finger and tap 4 more 16th notes. Lastly, move to the middle finger and tap 4 more 16ths. Now move back to the pinky finger and continue the pattern. Continue the pattern tapping four 16th notes per finger back to front. There should be no audible gaps when moving between each finger. You may have to slow the metronome down. You may find it difficult to keep your other fingers from moving at the same time. This is normal. As you continue these excercises your will see your fingers becoming more and more indepedant each day. Continue practicing until you can play continuous 16th notes rotating through all the fingers for a whole minute without stopping. Make sure to switch hands and do the same thing with the other hand. This is one of the most important exercises because it is the primer for beginning to make your fingers independant.

EXERCISE 2
Now instead of 4 notes on each finger you will do triplets on each finger. Rotate through each finger in the same way (pinky, ring, middle, etc). Again, there should be no audible gap between each triplet. If your having great difficulty transitioning between fingers, go back to exercise 1 and practice another day on it.

EXERCISE 3
Now you will do double strokes before rotating to the next finger. Notice that as we have moved through each of these excercises each finger is spending less time bouncing the stick on it's own before it's time to switch to another finger. It is very important to train your fingers to move smoothly from one finger to the next. This will serve as a key roll in mastering finger control.

EXERCISE 4
You may have already guessed, but in this exercise you will only allow the stick to bounce only once before moving to the next finger. It will bounce pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger, back to pinky finger and so on. This exercise is all about finger transitions. You have to be real careful with this exercise. I had the tendancy to think I was moving my fingers separately when I was actually using two fingers at once. You should start slow with this exercise. Keep visual contact with your fingers so that you can see that they are moving separately. Make sure none of the fingers are pushing on the stick at the same time. Make sure to train each hand the same amount of time to keep them balanced.

If you want to save some practicing time on exercises 1 - 4, trying practicing with both left and right hands simultaneously. In other words, both sticks will be bouncing at the exact same time. This is also called flat flams. Practicing in this way will keep both hands warm and will cut your practice time in half.

EXERCISE 5
Now it's going to get a little tough now. We are going to interleave the right hand with the left hand. This will make a single stroke roll. To begin interleaving you will once again be doing exercise 1 except that now the other hand will follow one 32nd note behind. The order of the fingers will alternate between right hand(RH) pinky to left hand(LH) pinky 4 times, RH ring finger to LH ring finger 4 times, and then RH middle finger to LH middle finger 4 times for a total of 24 strokes before the pattern repeats with the pinky fingers again. The above order means starting with the right hand. Switch it up and start with the left hand pinky instead. In this case you will be playing LH pinky to RH pinky 4 times, LH ring to RH ring 4 times, and LH middle to RH middle 4 times. Continue practicing until you can play continously for a minute without stopping. There should be no tension when doing these exercises. If it begins to hurt, stop what your doing and relax. You may need to slow down the metronome. None of these excercises should hurt. In fact, finger control is going to help you relax much more, once you get used to using your fingers. Move on through each of the exercises interleaving 16th notes, triplets, doubles, and finally singles into a smooth single stroke roll. Although your fingers maybe doing doubles or triplets, by interleaving the fingers you will be producing a solid single stroke roll.

Below is a picture of the order that my fingers will play doing interleaved singles. It is an example of interleaving with exercise #4. I left the sticks out of my hands so that it would be easier to show the fingers. This is the most difficult excercise as it requires the ability to switch smoothly from finger to finger on each hand as well at the ability to interleave them with the other hand. The pattern goes from 1 - 6 and starts over at 1 again. I start with my right hand in the picture below. The index finger and the thumb only serve as the pivot for the stick and do not help to move the stick in any way.