You may have done this as a kid:
Put your hand down flat.
Bend in your middle finger until it touches your palm.
now tap each remain finger one at a time.
You CAN do all of them with some effort but the pinky unless you have practiced and or trained will barely move.
Now if you do ring and pinky at the same time it’s fine-ish.
That’s because the tendons in the back of your hand that pull them up so very rarely work independently they barely can.
When you are doing the tapping index to pinky ring goes first and pulls pinky up.
The other way and it’s working against those tendons.
Ligament independence.
Try making a fist and place it palm-down on a table. Now stick out your index finger. You should be able to move it up and down easily. Now try the middle. It’s a little less free. Now try your 3rd (ring) finger. Probably impossible. The pinky is on the end of your fist so it will have some ability to move probably.
Now hold your hand straight up with your fingers fully extended and spread your fingers loosely so they are straight out but relaxed. Now just do some bends of your first two knuckles on your index finger. Now just do the middle finger. You might see some movement in your ring finger when you do that. Now bend just the ring finger. You should encounter some difficulty while your middle finger is extended straight and your pinky finger should try to bend a little. You may not be able to bend the pinky by itself without moving the ring finger.
It turns out our fingers are not naturally all as independent as they seem. So if you drum from the index finger to the pinky, you start by stabilizing the more independent fingers down on the table and are stuck holding the less independent ones up, which might make the muscles more jerky and make the movement less smooth. But if you start by setting the pinky down and moving towards the index finger, you’ll be following a more natural pattern of muscle and ligament interaction.
At least, apparently, for some people. Including me.
I think it’s to do with the angle of the dangle the twist of wrist to the table and just let those twisted little fingers drop like the beat.
It is most likely due to your pinky finger being shorter and lower down.
I myself can finger tap either way no problem, each hand though I have to think about it to do so with my right hand.
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