Finger Accents

Joe Morello was once quoted as saying that if your chops are out of shape, one of the quickest ways to get them back into shape was through practicing accents. I believe the specific finger accent I teach is a bit different though than the way Joe taught. My teacher, Dave Divis, who was at the time a student of Joe Morello, taught me to always practice completely relaxed. It was based the the Moeller drum technique system, which is a very natural and efficient way of playing.

For many years I relied mostly on playing with my wrists. I played very well, but when I joined the Army Band, my instructor noticed that my fingers were really underdeveloped. He told me I’d play much cleaner and faster if I developed my fingers to work along with my wrists.

He gave me a page of accent exercises. He told me to hit each accent hard, using mostly my fingers. When I tried the exercises, he kept telling me to hit the accents harder. I was very skeptical about practicing this way because as I mentioned earlier, I was taught to always practice completely relaxed, and this didn’t seem relaxing at all to me. I was afraid I’d create tension in my hands and therefore slow myself down.

At the time I was learning this technique, I was going through the Armed Forces School Of Music in Virginia Beach. It was a tri-service school, run by the Navy, and my percussion instructor was a Marine. So how was I going to argue with his drum teaching methods? I decided to give his finger accent technique a try.

Within 1 week I noticed a big difference. My double stroke rolls, flams and accents were much more controlled and crisp. My overall speed also increased.

I use a very simple exercise for this technique rather than a whole page or book full of exercises. You just play 8th notes over and over with each individual hand. The first 8th is accented down stroke, and the following 8th is an unaccented upstroke to prepare you for the next accent. Very simple. Again, hit the accents hard. Use mostly fingers. Start the accents from about a 6″ to 8″ level.

Here is the exercise.



Here’s a video demonstration I created.



Practice this everyday for 10 minutes. If your fingers are currently underdeveloped, I promise you that you’ll feel a big difference in your hands within 1-2 weeks.