Aspiring fingers of fury.

So the interest started with percussive guitar and it has now developed to wishing for both a darbuka and a Hang!

Due to lack of funding I’ll just have to start with some hand drumming as the percussive guitar has been put on hold for finger styling at the moment. There’s a Korean dude that has done a few good introductory videos on YouTube (though not in English!) – I’m starting with this one. He makes it look so easy but you need some mad coordination which I’m seriously lacking! Would also be nice if he slowed the pace a tad to get the hi-hat integration.

Once the desk drumming is down I’ll consider investing in a pretty darbuka. There’s a guy that has set up a website – Fingers of Fury (awesome name!) – with over a hundred video tutorials up, however you must pay membership to access them – £49/year. Judging by what he’s got up on YouTube, they’re really good and certainly worth the investment if serious about learning to play, but it’s probably a good idea to get the basic techniques down first and maybe even some of the more complicated riffs.

The Hang is really an incredible instrument – had never seen one before today. It was recently developed in Switzerland and is a piece of genius! I hardly know enough to explain it, so you can read about it on Wikipedia or just see it in action. Davide Swarup who has collaborated with Shpongle also does an awesome bit of improv on a second generation Hang. Apparently you need to submit a written request for an appointment to acquire one so probably best to wait til at least the basic skills are down…gimme a few years!