I used to not be able to play rolls with my pinkies on the stick, but I just practiced an hour or two each day for 3 or 4 days and now it's no problem. So there shouldn't be anyone on a drumline that plays without their pinkies.

i have that problem i try to fix it but its just easyer for me and its only my pinky not all my fingers

i remeber this guy who tried out for snare he only played with his thumb and first finger is was so nasty. he never made it.

Sorry I didnt respond to some of the questions, I forgot to reread this thread. Despite the I think drumclub's response was dead on. Not using the pinky finger can have an adverse effect of your playing, and 'tea time' pinky will cause more tension in your hand.

I know I've mentioned this in other posts, but I'm liking using the back three fingers for most of the work. On any kind of diddle the back 3 fingers control the second stroke off of the rebound off the head. So in my work, pinkys are SO important.

I had one kid in my line that I yelled at for 4 years about his "tea time" pinky work, and finally his senior year he fixed it and kept it. Stubborn!

But I agree with what PNHSTech said earlier, it fully depends on what style everyone is using. In marching, though, my lines use the style I mentioned above.

Marathon,
The style you like, using the rear fingers to control the second stroke of a diddle, is exactly waht I was taught growing up, and try to teach to all of my students. It is more difficult to learn how to roll this way because you dont get the instant gratification of playing a crappy roll wih only your fulcrum, but the control you will gain in the long run is well worth it.

You're absolutely correct. The fulcrum roll is an instant gratification that makes students think, "Oh, since I can do it this easily, why should I change?". In my opinion, the pinklyess roll, even though you can achieve a O.K. sound quality from it, you lose everything about your grip visually, even if there is nothing wrong with your trad hand.

In response to a lot of the posts here, the fingers are only a part of the larger picture. You can't play a roll with good sound quality and evenness without using your arms and wrist. Not to take it to the extreme, but you should use your wrist mainly with very small amounts of arm and the fingers should really just be there for support. The fingers are much like a cradle for the stick. They add sound quality but they should be in a more supporting role while the wrist does most of the work. The fulcrum is also very important and shouldn't be overlooked.

this is an annoying problem that most drumlines here in corpus use. i dotn get it... they try to go all out scv and blue devs but i never saw a dci dude w flying pinkies. when teaching my fish i use the jeff queen technique.
-play 8 on a hand one time with indexes then do middles then rings then pinkies.
- next repeat but do two at a time.

its just a bad habit, tht people do. it drives me crazy when i see tht. its improper playing, and gives you bad control over your sticks. my opinion, so dont kill me with mean come backs