The movement to produce the slap tone is primarily controlled by your wrist. Your fingers & elbow are also important. Your shoulder will have incidental movement, but it should be minimal.

Your Wrist

The movement of your wrist may be the most important part of the open stroke.

Amazing Fact: The human wrist is many times more complex than the largest existing computer

Anatomy: The wrist joint moves circularly, side to side, and forward and back.

Tip: The slap movement is identical to dribbling a basketball.

Practice Tip: Wave your hand, moving front & back. Do this in sets for twenty seconds each. To perfect the motion & help build strong wrists you can do this as often as you want .

Keep the movement firm and even - moving only forward & back.

Your fingers

Your fingers and especially the pads of your fingers are the main striking portion of the hand in the Slap Stroke.

The hand & fingers should be straight but not stiff & fully extended.

The hand & fingers should be relaxed; but not lethargic.

Their should be a very slight curve to the hand - a very slight bend in the palm. The fingers should be straight.

(Compare the Slap roundedness with Bass roundedness - the hand for the bass is more rounded...)

Keep your fingers straight, with no space between each finger, except thumb which should to the side & relaxed.

After you learn to produce strong closed (no space between fingers) finger slaps, play with the open (space between fingers) finger slap.

Tip: Keep fingers straight throughout entire stroke, whether playing open or closed.

Be aware of how many fingers & which ones are striking when fingers are closed & open

Your fingers for your right hand slap should strike to the right side of the drum.

Your fingers for you left hand slap should strike the left side of the drum.

Comparison of Closed Finger & Open Finger Slaps

Closed Finger Slaps

Volume: Soft to Very, Very Loud

Tempo Range: Very, very slow to Super fast

Tone Subtleties: Good Variety

Open Finger Slaps

Volume: Very, very soft to Loud

Tempo Range: Very, very slow to Super Fast

Tone Subtleties: Great Variety

Your Palms - The Reference Points

There is reference point (Invisible Line) on your hand - palms - to help you know where to strike you fingers for the slap.

This invisible line always line up with the drum rim when you play the slap.

The Lower Palm/Upper Most Portion of the Heel of your hand is your reference point for the Slap Stroke.

This part of your palm should gently touch the rim of your drum on every slap stroke.

Note: The slap sound is not made when your lower palm hits the rim; rather this serves as a reference point.

Just prior to touching the rim your wrist should snap forward and your straight fingers should, in an instant, strike the head and bounce up, aided by your wrist snapping back.

This all occurs in a split second.

The faster your wrist snaps forward and back and the quicker your fingers bounce off the drum head the better the tone.

Afro-Cuban Drum Strokes

Rhythms

LP Drums

Percussion