Write Down Or Program The Part
Many drummers find that writing out the song helps them to better internalize patterns. If your brain has already broken down the parts, itll be easier to know what you need to do when you sit down on the kit.
If you dont know how to read or write music, you might still be able to come up with shorthand doodles that work for you. In drum tablature, for example , we represent a drum hit with an o and a cymbal hit with an x. And lower-sounding notes are typically written below higher-frequency notes . If you jot down os for the bass and snare drum and some xs for the main cymbal, that should be enough to get started.
If you want to take it one step further with technology, you can use transcribing software like Guitar Pro or Finale to write out the parts. While many people use these programs for composing original pieces, theyre just as useful for learning songs.
Alex Rudinger has 4 pro tips to learn hard songs faster and these are immediately applicable whether youre learning a simple track or something complex:
Playing The Bass Drum
The bass drum is played with the right foot on the bass drum pedal. Here is how four strokes are displayed on drum sheet music.
Like the snare drum, this notation shows a simple note. However, the position is in the bottom space of the measure. That is what indicates this note is to be played with on the bass drum.
Some drum sets include two bass drums, or double pedals that allow for both feet to operate the same bass drum. In either case, drum notation has a way of indicating a note that is to be played with the “left” foot on a second bass drum pedal.
As you can see, this second bass drum cymbal is on an imaginary line below the measure. It may seem a little confusion, but don’t worry – this is very rarely seen in beginner to intermediate drum lesson material. By the time you need to use it – reading most drum sheet music will be second nature to you.
Playing the Tom Toms
Playing the toms is probably the most difficult part of drum notation to sight read. However, once you understand the three simple symbols, you will be well on your way to developing this important ability. The smallest tom is indicated with this symbol.
All the tom toms are to be played with a drumstick hitting the center of the drumhead. This produces the clearest tone from the drum, and with practice, will ensure you don’t hit the rim of the drum.
The second tom is marked with the same note, but in the second gap.
And finally, the last tom is indicated with a note in the third gap.
Reading Drum Sheet Music
Learning how to read drum music can be challenging, but there are a few tricks that will help you coordinate all the information contained in drum set notation.
While it is possible to be a good drummer without knowing how to read music, the ability to read will open up worlds of opportunities to the musician! You can learn from any book, compose your own pieces or exercises, and transcribe the works of your favorite artists.
Reading drum music is power! Are you ready to get started? Here are six tips for learning how to read drum sheet music.
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Drum Notation Guide Drum Key
The Basic Drum Key below is a quick-reference for the most commonly used notations.
Our Master Drum Key includes both basic and advanced notations. Weve included detailed explanations and videos below the key. Feel free to print the Master Drum Key for your reference.
Youll find detailed explanations, graphics and videos below. Read this section straight-through or skip ahead to the notations you need further support with.
Reading Rhythms For Drum Music
At the University of North Texas, all freshman percussionists had to take a percussion methods class with Mark Ford. The first lesson was Rhythm is King. Ford used to also say that to be a good reader, you needed to read everyday.
The golden rule for music starts with counting. If you cant count it, you cant play it.
- Four quarter notes, the rhythm is counted 1, 2, 3, 4.
- Eight eighth notes, its counted 1 + , 2 + , 3 + , 4 + .
- Sixteenth notes, the rhythms are counted 1 e + a, 2 e + a, 3 e + a, 4 e + a.
Try these counting exercises. Once you are comfortable with the counting, count along with a metronome set at a comfortable tempo. Increase the tempo a few times to push the edges of your ability.
Counting Exercise 1
Counting Exercise 3
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What Should You Do First When A Chart Is Handed To You
- Identify the style. Ask questions if it is not clear.
- Make sure you know when to play and when not to play.
- Scan the chart for road map symbols,
- Look for any edits made to the arrangement and not notated
- Identify the dynamics and make notes of any clarifications throughout the session.
- Locate the ensemble or section figures, and begin to think about how to approach them.
- Be ready to make notes on the chart as the arrangement changes or if something is unclear.
Drum Notation Is Different From Other Sheet Music
Before getting to the basics, its important for you to understand that drumming has its own set of notes. While all melodic instruments have notes, scales, sharps, and flats, drum music sheets are completely different.
The good thing is that drum notation is arguably easier to read than melodic notation. In a music sheet for drums, you dont need to worry about key signatures or accidentals. If you dont know what those are, dont worry about it.
You just need to know about subdivisions and drum note placements, which is what Im going to explain as you read on.
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Tips On Reading And Writing Drum Sheet Music
Before we end this article, I would like to go over a few tips to help make studying sheet music a little bit easier and more manageable even if you are self-studying.
- Break it down into bite-sized pieces. Looking at all the symbols and all the information listed on sheet music can get overwhelming. This is why it is important to take things little by little. You will need to be patient with yourself especially when you are just beginning to learn how to read and write sheet music. Take it one measure at a time if you have to. Many drummers take years before they can master reading sheet music, but the result is worth the time and practice!
- Practice makes perfect. To continuously improve your reading skills and speed, you will have to keep doing it. The more you do it, the more your brain gets used to seeing the same symbols and associating them with their meanings. Set aside around thirty minutes to an hour each day just practicing to read sheet music and testing the sounds on your drum set.
- Set goals. Achieving goals give you a sense of self-fulfillment. The feeling of fulfillment is a great motivator. It is much easier to function when you are motivated by something! This is why it is a good idea to set small stepping-stone goals that you can reach in a week or so. By doing this, you will be able to see that you are making progress!
Drum Sheet Music: How to Read & Write for Beginners
The Ultimate Guide To Drum Sheet Music
Think drummers dont need to read music? Think again! Drum sheet music is a great way to learn your favorite beats and write things out so you will remember them later.
Drum sheet music is written on the same five line staff as traditional music. At the beginning of the piece, youll see the time signature. Written like a fraction , the time signature lets you know how many beats to play in each measure and what the rhythm should be. You should also see the number of beats per minute above the staff, near the time signature. The beats per minute lets you know how quickly or slowly to play the beat.
Playing the Bass Drum
The bass drum, also known as the kick drum, is played by pressing a pedal with your right foot. Bass drum beats are noted in the first space on the staff as shown below:
For the hard rockers out there playing double bass drums, the second bass drum is shown on an imaginary line below the staff, like this:
Playing the Toms
Your three toms are written in the spaces above the bass drum. Play each tom by striking the drum in the center of the head with your stick. Avoid striking the rim of the drum as much as possible. The low tom is written in the second space, as seen in the example below:
Your mid-range tom, or mid tom, is shown as a note in the third space, as on the staff below:
Finally, the highest pitched tom, or hi tom, fills the top space on the staff.
Playing the Snare Drum
Playing the Hi Hat
Playing the Ride Cymbal
Reading Drum Sheet Music
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Drum Sheet Music: The Basics Of Reading And Writing Explained
Nick CesarzLearning DrumsDisclaimer: Links throughout the article may be affiliated. If you click and make a purchase, I get a small commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Learning to read and write drum sheet music is not something all drummers will desire or strive to understand.
In fact, Id go as far to say that most professional drummers either havent learned how to read or dont utilize drum notation on a daily basis.
This is completely okay. Theres no real rule book that states one must learn how to read drum music. Not being able to read music has no effect on your musical ability.
Its not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I cant teach you that other stuff.
Glenn Holland Mr. Hollands Opus
That being said, having a decent understanding of musical notation can improve the rate at which you understand drumming concepts and can even set you apart from the crowd .
If you can walk into a session, take a look at some notation and immediately play along with the band, youll definitely stick out.
Being proficient at reading drum sheet music can help you land the audition, secure a role in a band, get the session gig, or just further your own personal ability to play the kit.
I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to take drum lessons when I was younger and I was taught all the basics of reading music.
How To Read Drum Sheet Music: Step By Step Guide For Beginners
Matt Marriott
Learning how to understand and read drum sheet music, aka drum music and/or drum notation, can be very intimidating at first. Do drummers have to be able to read drum music in order to play? You most certainly can learn to play the drums without knowing how to read drum sheet music. It probably seems much easier and less boring to just sit behind a drum kit and start playing .
However, there is so much knowledge that can be used the sooner you learn how to read drum music. Youre likely to learn how to play the drums faster. You can be more creative when making your own beats. It can even be used as a tool to help you break down a drum fill from your favorite drummer. Feel free to follow along on my and accounts as I post free drum beats along with the drum sheet music that goes with it!
Simply put, understanding and being able to read drum sheet music will help make you a better drummer and musician.
This guide is geared towards someone that is just starting off on this topic. We will be sticking to mostly the basics . Once you understand the basics, everything else will fall into place, so lets get to it.
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So What Does 4/4 Actually Mean
The number on the top of the time signature is the number of beats. In this case its 4.
The number on the bottom is the note value, which you may remember we looked at earlier. If you see a 4 here, that means youre dealing with, you guessed it, the good old crotchet!
The time signature gives you a certain allowance of notes youre allowed per chunk of music.
Think of it like spending money.
In this example, you are only allowed 4 crotchets worth of notes before your allowance runs out.
At that point, we stick a line down the staff to signify that this little chunk of music is done and there is no more room in this section.
Now Get Out There And Learn
Playing along to music is so important to learning the drums and appreciating other musicians and the instruments they play. Plus it makes drumming way more fun, and if your goal is to play in a band or ensemble, youll be better prepared to be part of a team.
If you like free stuff and learning new songs, .
Samantha Landais the editor of The Drumeo Beat. She currently plays with Conquer Divide, The Anti-Queens and Dead Asylum and has toured with metal bands Nervosa and Introtyl. Sam has been featured by outlets such as Sick Drummer Magazine and DRUM! Magazine, and proudly endorses Mapex Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Evans Drumheads and Los Cabos Drumsticks.
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Note Lengths And Note Values
A notes length/value tells you how long that note lasts in the music.
If youre playing a slow old blues track, youre likely to have big old note values with lots of time taken up by each note.
As a result, the music feels slow and relaxed. Everyone is taking their time with each note.
If youre into heavy metal, and youre playing thunderous double bass with both feet, the note values are likely to be a lot smaller, with lots of them squeezed together.
This makes the music feel fast and frenzied. These are the kind of notes youd be likely to play in a drum solo too.
DID YOU KNOW? Frank Zappa famously wrote a piece called The Black Page. It was filled with so many small note values, pressed so close together, that the page appeared to turn almost completely black with ink.
How Do I Know Which Part Of The Drum Kit To Play
Now that you have a better knowledge of the different types of notes and how to count them, we need to take a look at how different parts of the drum kit are written on the stave.
Here is a key to where all the different parts of a drum set sit on a stave:
As a general rule, the lower in pitch the instrument, the lower its going to be on the stave.
So looking at the drum key above you can see that the kick drum is right in the bottom space , with the cymbals being all the way at the top, as they are higher in pitch than the drums.
The only exception being the stepped hi-hat .
Its at the bottom of the stave to differentiate it from a normal hi-hat thats struck with a stick.
Cymbals are always represented with the notehead as an X , whereas drums will have a normal notehead.
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Everything You Need To Know About Drum Notes And Drum Score Collected In A Handy Drum Notation Guide
On your journey to becoming a better drummer, learning how to read and write drum sheet music is incredibly important. In fact, clearly understanding this language of drumming is a superpower.
Drum sheet music allows drummers to play new drum beats and perform songs without hearing or practising them beforehand. Drum music is made up of the percussion clef, drum notes, drum keys, crotchets, time signatures, quavers, semiquavers, drum fills, and bars, all precisely placed on the staff.
Though the ability to play music without ever hearing it may seem almost magical, once you understand the notes of drum sheet music, youll unlock this ability too.
In the same way that there are myths about how hard it is to learn drums, the idea of reading sheet music feels way outside the comfort zone of many drummers.
I wrote this drum notation guide to prove that its really not that difficult
Reading drum sheet music is a great skill to assist you with your drumming even when you are first starting out playing, even if youre learning without a drum set.
Gaining an understanding of how drumming patterns work before you take them to the drum set will give you a leg up and make it easier to understand and learn to play drum music that you love.
We recommend reading from the start of this drum notation guide to get the most benefit as each section helps you to understand the next more clearly.
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