►► Learn all the basics of Finger Drumming for FREE on → questforgroove.com Timelinks: 0:00 Demonstration 0:24 Introduction 0:56 This is not a quick fix! 1:13 What you should do 1:27 Why you absolutely have to use your voice 3:19 Exercise #1 explained 3:42 Exercise #1 demonstration 4:15 Why not just use a metronome? 5:38 Exercise #2 explained 6:01 Exercise #2 demonstration 6:27 Syncing with a metronome 6:38 How to keep this up over a long period of time
'Clock inside the head' - That's it!! That explains why I can't finger drum without my music. The music serves as my clock!! Second revelation: That's why people sway or bob their heads when playing, the swinging or bobbing serves as the clock (pendelum head - haha) !. welcome back from your long furlough. Always like your tips... groove on
Metronomes are for learning timing intervals for your internal clock, vocal cues are for learning consistency in timing. These are two different things. With a metronome, the timing interval is inflexible and unnatural. You want to use one to start so you can train your internal clock, but good music isn't perfectly locked to a tempo, as small drifts at specific moments help build dramatic tension. Recording your vocal cues, you can review your drifts and perfect the timing without feeling rushed by a machine with no sense of drama.
This is a great summary of how things seem to work. I wish I had discovered vocal cues earlier on in my music career. Spent so many years just using a metronome and I could have made much better and faster progress had I also introduced vocal cues. Thanks for sharing!
I see you are getting healthier man. Nice to see you. Your tutorials are the best. Detailed, planned and accurate. Hoping to see more because there are so much learning in your tuts. ☺️
Thanks Robert for the video! Your videos helped me immensely with finger drumming and Im going to start focusing on counting out loud now to help with my timing. One of my other issues which I find strange is I can't seem to stop swinging the beat lol. It feels natural to me while playing and I tend to start always swinging instead of playing straight beats..
Swinging is just the most fun :-) But ofcourse you want to be in contol. A good exercise is to move from swing into straight back into swing back to straight etc. So you really practice making that switch and feeling the difference.
So happy to see this upload! I mainly do looping music so I usually avoid adding drum fills (since it gets repetitive hearing the same one over again), so it's definitely a weak spot of mine. Unrelated to this video specifically, but do you have any general advice for making tutorial videos and talking to a camera? I'd love to start making finger drumming tutorials as well but I have a lot of resistance for some reason lmao
My best tip is to write down in bulletpoints what it is that you want to say and then you just do multiple takes until it comes out right. So don't memorize an entire script or anything, just talk like a real person but with bulletpoints so you know you don't forget things :-)
Amen, works for any instrument. Folks think they need advanced exercises to progress, while they cannot play a simple part while counting out loud. I was one of them, of course :D
This is interesting because I was taught almost the opposite. (No shade on learning to count whilst playing; this is super useful - better yet, learn to sing the melody and the bass whilst playing). The best way to have your fills feel natural and in time is to 'sing' the fill, not the time. Especially since a lot of the time you will have a click/loop/4-stringed metronome (see: good bass players) the crucial bit is feeling the actual notes you're playing, complete with their own rhythmic drift and tension/release, so if you can 'sing' in, through, and out of your fill you'll create a musical phrase, and your hands ought to follow that easily rather than worry about hiccups aligning with the actual time. This also has a wonderful effect of stopping you resorting to the same 5 fills every time, or playing non-musical phrases simply because you've just mastered the inverted double flammadiddle and need to show everyone ;)
Thanks for sharing! I used to sing everything I played, but the problem I had was that what I was singing wasn't 100% accurate :-) For example my upbeats would always have a tendency to speed up. Or going from a couple of hits to more hits in a bar would cause me to speed up and I notice a lot of people have problems like this. When practicing with a metronome this problem would not go away, but I would simply speed up and then correct when I heard I was moving away from the click. I found that counting first and then building on top of that made everything more solid for me and for example also a lot easier to lock in with a metronome or another part, because my inner clock now 'agrees' with the metronome in where the count actually is :-)
Try playing Korn's 'Life is peachy' album on midi keyboard/addictive drums. I can play like 93% of it accurately, which I might not have thought possible if I didn't' try over and over. Their old drummer is a rhythmic genius as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if I could do it on pads even though I haven't tried yet. I started getting into the finger throwback of the keys.
Hey thank you this is an amazing tutorial. which pack are you using on your addictive drums ? i really love the jazz brushes but the toms on this one sounds awesome ,or is it due to some processing from your side ?
I think this is a hybrid between the "Modern Soul and R&B" kit and "Black Velvet" kit :-) The Black Velvet is just the hi hat and the Modern Soul is everything else, including the toms.
Hi, I'm really happy i found your channel. I use ableton push and i want to take advantage of the 64 pad layout and drum rack to play around and try to make fullish songs on this one device. I would love to get your opinion and maybe some tips and tricks specific to ableton and push 2. Be well!
Hey maybe check out this article and video about the Launchpad (which is also 8x8). I made a layout for that. questforgroove.com/the-best-8x8-pad-layout-for-finger-drumming/ And another cool thing is to set up a normal grid but then use the pads on either side to swipe your fingers across and do rolls and stuff. Article over here: questforgroove.com/drum-rolls-for-finger-drummers/
I appreciate your community presence, you've got yourself an engaged fan. I'll have a look at it but the thing is that i already own a push2. Is there a reason why i see nothing about it on your channel?
@@brujasanakombucha9851 I did not mean you should buy a launchpad! You should keep your push, but it might be nice to look into the 8x8 layout I made for the launchpad and maybe apply that to the push2? I don't really make that much content for specific devices. My main focus is a 4x4 grid (which can also be used on the push ofcourse). Any device with sensitive pads and the possibility of a 4x4 layout can be used for finger drumming and that's what most of the content is about. Not the devices themselves.
I just tried this and it's going to take some practice for me. For simple fills without any syncopation or hestation or what I might call off beats, I could do it right away. But as soon as I wanted to make a fill that was more interesting, where there is some heistation or missing beats etc. I couldn't count out loud and do the fill simultaneously. In fact BOTH things failed for me. I stopped verbalizing the count AND I totally screwed up the fill!! Haha I've got some practicing to do obviously! I assume that you intend this for performance based playing as opposed to recording? Because while recording I always have the click track to guide me. I make mistakes, sure, but that's more because drums aren't my main instrument, and I have to work harder yo get a good performance anyway. Very good tip though, and I am going to practice in hopes that it makes me a better drummer overall.
Yeah it absolutely takes practice but over time it will give you great results. I did not invent this trick by the way, if you want to hear it from a true groove master on drums check out "the art and science of groove" by Benny Greb dvd. He talks about this as well. Here's a free lesson he did on drumeo >> ruclips.net/video/OP3o84bMduE/видео.html The best thing to do when playing to a click is to link your voice to the click and then play your beat. It will sound a lot more together than just using the click.
I now always use Addictive Drums 2 from XLN Audio. Have used Ni Abbey Road drummer (70s) kit for a while, which is Kontakt, but now it's AD2 all the way!
I wish somebody makes a drumpad with but real highend,pads, really good sensitivity and so on, but with no internal samples or useless drum kits or loops. That would give us a really good pad for working with those drum VSTs, but cheaper since they wouldn't have to pay professional sound people to make those useless and unmusical loops and kits to go into it.
Unrelated to the video but I wish somebody makes a drumpad with but real highend,pads, really good sensitivity and so on, but with no internal samples or useless drum kits or loops. That would give us a really good pad for working with those drum VSTs, but cheaper since they wouldn't have to pay professional sound people to make those useless and unmusical loops and kits to go into it. There are MIDI keyboards like that so why not drumpads? Or even a full on MIDI electronic drumset? If there are any drumpads or kits like that, somebody please drop the knowledge bomb on me. Or if there are none like that and if you are someone associated with any of those drumpad or electronic drum kits manufacturers, please consider suggesting the idea to your company. Thank you.
►► Learn all the basics of Finger Drumming for FREE on → questforgroove.com
Timelinks:
0:00 Demonstration
0:24 Introduction
0:56 This is not a quick fix!
1:13 What you should do
1:27 Why you absolutely have to use your voice
3:19 Exercise #1 explained
3:42 Exercise #1 demonstration
4:15 Why not just use a metronome?
5:38 Exercise #2 explained
6:01 Exercise #2 demonstration
6:27 Syncing with a metronome
6:38 How to keep this up over a long period of time
'Clock inside the head' - That's it!! That explains why I can't finger drum without my music. The music serves as my clock!! Second revelation: That's why people sway or bob their heads when playing, the swinging or bobbing serves as the clock (pendelum head - haha) !. welcome back from your long furlough. Always like your tips... groove on
I learnt from your video. I'll start counting from now on. I use acoustic drums 🥁 and have problems with fills
Metronomes are for learning timing intervals for your internal clock, vocal cues are for learning consistency in timing. These are two different things.
With a metronome, the timing interval is inflexible and unnatural. You want to use one to start so you can train your internal clock, but good music isn't perfectly locked to a tempo, as small drifts at specific moments help build dramatic tension. Recording your vocal cues, you can review your drifts and perfect the timing without feeling rushed by a machine with no sense of drama.
Very well said!!!
This is a great summary of how things seem to work. I wish I had discovered vocal cues earlier on in my music career. Spent so many years just using a metronome and I could have made much better and faster progress had I also introduced vocal cues. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks rob!
another great video . thanks a lot .
mr. robert thank you for all your videos, my beats have improved because of your lessons 🙏
Hey thats great to hear Paul. Keep it up and have fun playing and grooving!
I see you are getting healthier man. Nice to see you. Your tutorials are the best. Detailed, planned and accurate. Hoping to see more because there are so much learning in your tuts. ☺️
Hey thanks! That means a lot. I'll do my best to keep them coming!
Thanks Robert for the video! Your videos helped me immensely with finger drumming and Im going to start focusing on counting out loud now to help with my timing. One of my other issues which I find strange is I can't seem to stop swinging the beat lol. It feels natural to me while playing and I tend to start always swinging instead of playing straight beats..
Swinging is just the most fun :-) But ofcourse you want to be in contol. A good exercise is to move from swing into straight back into swing back to straight etc. So you really practice making that switch and feeling the difference.
So happy to see this upload! I mainly do looping music so I usually avoid adding drum fills (since it gets repetitive hearing the same one over again), so it's definitely a weak spot of mine. Unrelated to this video specifically, but do you have any general advice for making tutorial videos and talking to a camera? I'd love to start making finger drumming tutorials as well but I have a lot of resistance for some reason lmao
would love to see it 👀
My best tip is to write down in bulletpoints what it is that you want to say and then you just do multiple takes until it comes out right. So don't memorize an entire script or anything, just talk like a real person but with bulletpoints so you know you don't forget things :-)
Thank you!!!
Amen, works for any instrument. Folks think they need advanced exercises to progress, while they cannot play a simple part while counting out loud. I was one of them, of course :D
haha yeah I was one of them too :-) I guess we were all young once. haha
This is interesting because I was taught almost the opposite. (No shade on learning to count whilst playing; this is super useful - better yet, learn to sing the melody and the bass whilst playing). The best way to have your fills feel natural and in time is to 'sing' the fill, not the time. Especially since a lot of the time you will have a click/loop/4-stringed metronome (see: good bass players) the crucial bit is feeling the actual notes you're playing, complete with their own rhythmic drift and tension/release, so if you can 'sing' in, through, and out of your fill you'll create a musical phrase, and your hands ought to follow that easily rather than worry about hiccups aligning with the actual time.
This also has a wonderful effect of stopping you resorting to the same 5 fills every time, or playing non-musical phrases simply because you've just mastered the inverted double flammadiddle and need to show everyone ;)
Thanks for sharing! I used to sing everything I played, but the problem I had was that what I was singing wasn't 100% accurate :-) For example my upbeats would always have a tendency to speed up. Or going from a couple of hits to more hits in a bar would cause me to speed up and I notice a lot of people have problems like this. When practicing with a metronome this problem would not go away, but I would simply speed up and then correct when I heard I was moving away from the click. I found that counting first and then building on top of that made everything more solid for me and for example also a lot easier to lock in with a metronome or another part, because my inner clock now 'agrees' with the metronome in where the count actually is :-)
Try playing Korn's 'Life is peachy' album on midi keyboard/addictive drums. I can play like 93% of it accurately, which I might not have thought possible if I didn't' try over and over. Their old drummer is a rhythmic genius as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if I could do it on pads even though I haven't tried yet. I started getting into the finger throwback of the keys.
Hey thank you this is an amazing tutorial.
which pack are you using on your addictive drums ? i really love the jazz brushes but the toms on this one sounds awesome ,or is it due to some processing from your side ?
I think this is a hybrid between the "Modern Soul and R&B" kit and "Black Velvet" kit :-) The Black Velvet is just the hi hat and the Modern Soul is everything else, including the toms.
Great!
Hi, I'm really happy i found your channel. I use ableton push and i want to take advantage of the 64 pad layout and drum rack to play around and try to make fullish songs on this one device. I would love to get your opinion and maybe some tips and tricks specific to ableton and push 2. Be well!
Hey maybe check out this article and video about the Launchpad (which is also 8x8). I made a layout for that. questforgroove.com/the-best-8x8-pad-layout-for-finger-drumming/ And another cool thing is to set up a normal grid but then use the pads on either side to swipe your fingers across and do rolls and stuff. Article over here: questforgroove.com/drum-rolls-for-finger-drummers/
I appreciate your community presence, you've got yourself an engaged fan. I'll have a look at it but the thing is that i already own a push2. Is there a reason why i see nothing about it on your channel?
@@brujasanakombucha9851 I did not mean you should buy a launchpad! You should keep your push, but it might be nice to look into the 8x8 layout I made for the launchpad and maybe apply that to the push2? I don't really make that much content for specific devices. My main focus is a 4x4 grid (which can also be used on the push ofcourse). Any device with sensitive pads and the possibility of a 4x4 layout can be used for finger drumming and that's what most of the content is about. Not the devices themselves.
You're absolutely right. It's about playing the drums. I appreciate your feedback. I'm going to take your course. Keep the content coming
I just tried this and it's going to take some practice for me. For simple fills without any syncopation or hestation or what I might call off beats, I could do it right away. But as soon as I wanted to make a fill that was more interesting, where there is some heistation or missing beats etc. I couldn't count out loud and do the fill simultaneously. In fact BOTH things failed for me. I stopped verbalizing the count AND I totally screwed up the fill!! Haha I've got some practicing to do obviously! I assume that you intend this for performance based playing as opposed to recording? Because while recording I always have the click track to guide me. I make mistakes, sure, but that's more because drums aren't my main instrument, and I have to work harder yo get a good performance anyway. Very good tip though, and I am going to practice in hopes that it makes me a better drummer overall.
Yeah it absolutely takes practice but over time it will give you great results. I did not invent this trick by the way, if you want to hear it from a true groove master on drums check out "the art and science of groove" by Benny Greb dvd. He talks about this as well. Here's a free lesson he did on drumeo >> ruclips.net/video/OP3o84bMduE/видео.html The best thing to do when playing to a click is to link your voice to the click and then play your beat. It will sound a lot more together than just using the click.
@@TheQuestforGroove This is all good stuff. Thank you!
I hope you have been drowning in flowers by now, as this is a very useful video, especially for me as a fresh wanna-be finger drummer.
Hey my pleasure! I hope you'll make some awesome music with this knowledge.
What drum kit is this? Is it a machine or Kontakt kit?
I now always use Addictive Drums 2 from XLN Audio. Have used Ni Abbey Road drummer (70s) kit for a while, which is Kontakt, but now it's AD2 all the way!
Lol my younger self still occasionally pretends to be counting. I press record! After the illusion is revealed.
I wish somebody makes a drumpad with but real highend,pads, really good sensitivity and so on, but with no internal samples or useless drum kits or loops.
That would give us a really good pad for working with those drum VSTs, but cheaper since they wouldn't have to pay professional sound people to make those useless and unmusical loops and kits to go into it.
Do the pads of the maschine mikro mk3 have the same sensitivity as those of the mk3?
The mikro pads do come close, but the big mk3 pads are tiny bit more sensitive!
@@TheQuestforGroove thanks!😘
Unrelated to the video but I wish somebody makes a drumpad with but real highend,pads, really good sensitivity and so on, but with no internal samples or useless drum kits or loops.
That would give us a really good pad for working with those drum VSTs, but cheaper since they wouldn't have to pay professional sound people to make those useless and unmusical loops and kits to go into it.
There are MIDI keyboards like that so why not drumpads? Or even a full on MIDI electronic drumset?
If there are any drumpads or kits like that, somebody please drop the knowledge bomb on me.
Or if there are none like that and if you are someone associated with any of those drumpad or electronic drum kits manufacturers, please consider suggesting the idea to your company.
Thank you.
Check out this video. Not in production yet, but someone is working on it: ruclips.net/video/zCt9plVCF7g/видео.html