Finger Control Technique

Using the Finger Control technique you control the stick and put it in motion with your fingers.

As we know, wrists play a decisive role in playing the drums, but the fingers are a very important part of the hand, because they are responsible for speed, dynamics and proper control of articulation.

We can play much faster using fingers, although we do not get the strength of the impact given by the wrist or forearm.

How to hold a stick?

When you set your hand to the French Grip position (your thumb is pointing up and your fingers are resting under the stick), your fingers can actively set the stick in motion.

Finger Control – holding the stick


Ultimately, we work with all fingers, i.e. 2,3,4 and 5, with a predominance of 2,3 and 4, but you can practice your fingers separately, not only on snare drum and drum pad, there are a few exercises that I will show you now.

How to increase your finger dexterity?

1. There are several ways to practice your fingers outside of the instrument, although it’s best to practice your fingers by playing. The first involves closing and opening the fingers of the hand, holding the stick vertically.

Closing fingers


2. A very good way is to turn the hand with the back of your hand up and to hit each of the fingers separately – the finger sets the stick in motion, after which the stick bounces off the elastic surface (drum pad or snare drum) and returns up. You can practice each finger separately by hitting with only one or four fingers, e.g. 2,3,4,5 finger hits in turn, counting ” 1 2 3 4″.

Move the stick with fingers separately


3. Another good finger exercise with sticks – you close and open your fingers in the air, holding the sticks by the ends.

Closing fingers with – control the stick balance


4. Exercising on a resilient surface, as in point 2, you also practice balance, reflection and finger control, but another great exercise is to play snare drills on a non-reflecting surface – e.g. on a soft pillow – thanks to which you will develop the strength and dexterity of your fingers.

5. Accents on the second and third stroke in a group played with the same hand, i.e. two accented on the second stroke and three accented on the third stroke of the group (RRLL, RRRLLL). To make the accent on the last of multiple hits played with one hand, you need to involve your fingers more, which increases their efficiency.

Many of the exercises in this course develop finger dexterity in Finger Control, so practice my course exercises with full commitment, then your fingers will become more efficient.

Good luck with your fingers…

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