Reading Drum Music

Introduction

Okay, so reading drum music: drum notation. Now, just a personal aside — I basically taught myself to play the drums for a few years by listening to recordings that I liked. So, a lot of Stevie Wonder, maybe the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix — lots of stuff.

I was lucky enough to have access to some kind of drum kit, and I was able to make some sounds and try to work out how Stevie Wonder was creating that feeling in the song I was listening to. It was experimentation, but when I started reading drum notation a few years later, I really realized the importance of it.

Not everyone who can play drums reads music, and it's not essential, but I can tell you from my experience, it is very, very useful. I'm really glad that I'm able to do that. I got into it later on; it was just a slightly different order for doing things in my world.

But, you know, maybe some of you are coming to it that way as well. You might want to learn the basics, but you've been listening to music for a while and maybe trying to play it, or you might be total beginners. Everything's fine. We're all in this together.

Drum Notation Basics

In this course, we'll be dealing with the hi-hat, the snare, and the bass drum.

Hi-Hat and Snare Drum Notation

• Hi-Hats: Written as crosses on the top line, sitting right at the top of the stave.
• Bass Drum: Located at the bottom line of the stave, which may appear on beat one under the hi-hat.

There's a logic to it:

• Bass drums are down on the floor.
• Snare drums are in the middle (third line up on the stave).
• Hi-hats are at the top.

If you ever get confused about drum notation, remember that it follows a fairly logical arrangement.

Toms and Cymbals

• Toms: Not covered in this lesson, but they are written slightly higher than the snare under the hi-hats and cymbals.

Key Elements of Drum Music

When you see a piece of music for the first time, look out for:

1. Tempo: This is the beats per minute (BPM), often written as "crotchet equals" or "quarter note equals."

   • In this book, it's 80 — sometimes 85, sometimes 90.

2. Time Signature: All our pieces are in 4/4.

   • This means there are 4 quarter notes in a bar.
   • You can subdivide a quarter note into two eighth notes (1 and 2 and 3 and 4), but it's still in 4/4 time.

Understanding Time Signatures

• Top number (in 4/4): Indicates four beats in a bar.
• Bottom number: If it’s four, there are quarter notes in a bar; if it's eight, there are eighth notes.

For example, I play music that is in 7/8, which means seven eighth notes in a bar. Don’t worry; we're not doing that today. All our pieces are 4/4 (four notes in a bar).

Bar Length and Counting

• There are four beats in a bar, and a vertical line tells you when that bar has ended and when the next bar begins — those are the bar lines.
• A double bar line often appears at the end of a whole piece or a long song, perhaps at the end of an eight-bar verse, to indicate a transition.

Importance of Counting

I really recommend counting as part of developing your timekeeping. If you're using a metronome (which hopefully you will be), it's important for keeping track of your timing:

• It helps prevent speeding up when anxious about an upcoming drum fill.
• It also prevents slowing down when struggling with a passage.

Playing with a metronome offers reassurance that you're doing okay and playing more or less in time. We all fluctuate a little — we’re human, not machines — but you want to try and stay as close to the beat as possible.

Conclusion

When we start looking at the pieces and some of the exercises within those pieces, I'll talk a little more about the specifics of what we're seeing and how to interpret that.