The Best Way To Learn Finger Drumming In 2024

So you've seen videos of the pro finger drummers like Jeremy Ellis, David Fingers Haynes, Araabmuzik, Quest For Groove, Beats By J Black, or Gnarly on YouTube. You're impressed with their finger drumming skills and you want to learn how to play like them. Maybe you have a Maschine in your studio that doesn't get used enough, and you want to learn how to use those pads to their full potential.

Let me break it down for you step by step. I've spent the last 3 years teaching finger drumming professionally, and I'm here to help you overcome all the challenges and obstacles that new finger drummers face.

What Most People Don't Know About Finger Drumming

The first thing you need to realize is that finger drumming is a legit musical instrument. A lot of people think that it's just another piece of music production gear that you can use to tap out your beats, but it's MUCH more than that.

Finger drummers like myself and David Fingers Haynes have been pushing the boundaries to show the world that you can play the pads just like a real drummer:

When you learn the right skills and techniques, you can actually use the pads to play REAL DRUMS, and even pull off advanced drumming techniques like ghost notes, triplets, ultra-fast rolls and fills, and more.

So how do you learn to play finger drums like this?

Since finger drumming is just another way to play drums, you need to treat it like you're learning a real musical instrument.

Unfortunately, most online lessons and tutorials don't do this. If you search for finger drumming tutorials on YouTube, you'll find a lot of videos that show you how to tap out the most basic drum beats possible, and not much else.

There's nothing wrong with learning a couple of simple beats (that's how every musician starts out!), but eventually you need to go beyond that. You need to learn the actual fundamental principles and techniques that make up the building blocks of finger drumming.

You can't learn finger drumming by just copying the rhythms of a couple of artists. You need to learn how they put those rhythms together.

What skills and techniques are they using to craft their drum parts? How do they isolate their hi-hats from their kicks and snares? How do they execute those insanely fast drum fills so effortlessly?

The Best Way To Learn Finger Drumming

The key to learning all of this is following a good lesson plan. You need to find something that will teach you all of the building blocks of finger drumming step by step, so you can develop a strong set of skills.

Once you understand all the fundamentals, you can combine them however you want to play ANY kind of drums on the pads. Just like a real drummer, you can use your drumming skills to play Hip-Hop, Funk, Jazz, Metal, or anything in between!

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of options for learning realistic finger drumming like this.

Most online teachers and lessons just teach you how to play some simple rhythms, without teaching you WHAT you're actually doing or WHY you're doing it.

This is exactly why I created Dragon Finger Drums.

My mission is to teach finger drumming to as many people as possible. I started out several years ago by offering private lessons, but I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to reach very many people this way (there are only so many hours in the day to give live lessons!)

The solution was to create the world's first online finger drumming curriculum to teach advanced, REALISTIC finger drumming.

I spent the last 5 years creating a complete 35-hour lesson library to teach my advanced skills to other finger drummers.

It's a step by step system that anyone can learn, even if you have no musical experience.

I'm retiring from teaching finger drumming professionally on March 1st, 2026, and moving into an exciting new career path.

This is the last time I'll be offering these lessons for sale to new students — you can get lifetime access before the doors close forever.