I want to get into finger drumming, where do I start?

I've always been intrigued watching people finger drum, it's a definitely impressive skill.
My daughter has been playing the piano for a few years and I thought it would be cool for her and I both to be able to play together in real time, it would keep her interest up in studying the piano (as she is still too young to see the benefits of playing the piano) and it would allow us another thing that we could do together. I'm not really interested in battling other people on the MPC but I do want to become proficient in finger drumming so my question is how should I approach this and where should I start this process?

Jeremy Ellis has a bunch of lessons

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7BF4E8F5EA236162

Find a layout that appeals to you, I prefer kick, snare, closed hat, open hat on row 2, with other essential sounds placed nearby on rows 1 and 3. Then start with the basics, so get a basic 1/8 or 1/16 hi hat pattern going with the right hand index finger and work on playing the kick and snare with the left.

Play to a metronome, record it with no quantise and play back and critique.

Then start dropping in some more funky kick and snares while ensuring you maintain consistency on the hats. Once you have that it's just a case of practicing, varying the hats, bringing in open hats, cymbals etc. start trying to copy your favourite breaks.

Check out the acoustic drumming tutorials on YouTube, they'll teach you all the proper drumming techniques and practice drills which you can then adapt for finger drumming.

Then look at bringing in other musical elements from other pads, like hits, bass, vocals etc .

Also check out Melodics -- it's an instructional app that connects to your MPC, so you play the MPC as you lears their lessons....
Basic lessons are free, you can earn others by learning up, or pay for more also.

http://www.melodics.com/

Thanks guys, I'll check it out as soon as I get home.

Once you get the basic patterns down put on your favorite records and play along to the whole song.. Learning to listen and play along really helps with your drumming feel..

practice p ractice practice.
I was was asking people how to do it like you. I wouldn't get answers. So I just started doing it myself.
The good thing about doing it your own way is that you will figure out comfort quickly.

For example. I started with just two fingers, then added a third, then added a fourth.
Then I realized that it was smart for me to double up (have the same drum sound in two different places. Then it got really fast and efficient. So I don't have 16 different sounds all around me.
Four spots have the same sounds.

THumbs for me do kick. It is just easy for me to have the bottom line be kicks. thumbs pointed at each other.
Snares are on line two in the middle. I use index finger for that.
Middle finger and ring fingers do everything else.
Fills I do with the index, middle and ring.
I don't get fancy I keep it in the pocket.

THe Boss DR-880 is an excellent drum machine as it has many patterns to copy and learn So I would practice to it. It is also pressure sensitive if you wanted to use it as your drum machine for finger drumming.
The mpc 4000 works well for me as my main tool to do this.

My two cents.
Cheers,
IAn

Anyone got the Ren or studio working with melodics? I can get it to recognise that the studio is connected, but it's not recognising the pad hits at all, be it set to DRUM or MIDI tracks. Assume I'm missing something obvious.

Yes I've been using melodics since I read it in this thread and it was automatic. Though it says mpc studio even id I use it with the ren
I didn't use the mpc software midi mode. I don't even fire the software at all.

TT_Lab wrote:I don't even fire the software at all.

Yep, that solved it, just quit the MPC Software but leave the Studio running. Cheers

MPC-Tutor wrote:Jeremy Ellis has a bunch of lessons

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7BF4E8F5EA236162

Find a layout that appeals to you, I prefer kick, snare, closed hat, open hat on row 2, with other essential sounds placed nearby on rows 1 and 3. Then start with the basics, so get a basic 1/8 or 1/16 hi hat pattern going with the right hand index finger and work on playing the kick and snare with the left.

Play to a metronome, record it with no quantise and play back and critique.

Then start dropping in some more funky kick and snares while ensuring you maintain consistency on the hats. Once you have that it's just a case of practicing, varying the hats, bringing in open hats, cymbals etc. start trying to copy your favourite breaks.

Check out the acoustic drumming tutorials on YouTube, they'll teach you all the proper drumming techniques and practice drills which you can then adapt for finger drumming.

Then look at bringing in other musical elements from other pads, like hits, bass, vocals etc .

Dopest finger drumming crash course on the web

Jeremy Ellis also has a great course on MacProVideo.com called Virtuosity.

Spoff