by yoni » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:32 pm
Hi Montezuma,
One finger roll I know is done with the index finger of one hand and the index and ring finger of the other hand. Which side you do it from, left or right, is up to you. I call it the "Turkish Twiddle" 'cause I learned it from two Turkish brothers, Ahmet and Levent Misirli, who are champions of this technique and amazing players all around. I noticed a funny thing about that technique - since one hand gives one finger stroke and the other gives two, the arm of the hand giving the two strokes had muscles blown up like a football, while the arm of the other hand looked more normal.
A more "balanced" technique might be the double roll with hands - I do this on darbuka and have not seen or heard anyone else doing it yet. The finger rolls can be faster, but the double roll can be pretty darn fast, too. In fact, most people who see me doing it think I'm using fingers, not hands. Using a heavy darbuka helps with this hand technique, so that the drum doesn't "run away" from you when played sideways.
Another finger roll I use is with three fingers of the left hand and one of the right hand. Still another roll is with all fingers of both hands, as is often done with tonbak or zarb, the wooden "darbuka" used in the northern Mid East where there is more forest and wood for making such drums. And yet another finger roll is with the thumb and index finger of each hand - the thumb is held directly below the index finger. In this position each hand is brought down onto the drum head, one after the other. Only the thumb and the index finger strike the drum head, making a little flam. When it's done relaxedly, just from the wrist, the flams come together to make a nice roll. Seems to me that this technique can be mastered more quickly than some of the others.
There are still more kinds of traditional finger rolls, also with fingernails. Some are discussed more in-depth on darbuka sites such as "The Doumbek Page" and others.
All the best,
Yoni