Learn To Read Drum Music

Is learning to read drum music really necessary? The answer is quite simple – yes. At least if you want to become a good drummer. Many beginners struggle when it comes to reading drum music. There are those who even believe it's not important. But it is important and it's definitely worth your time.

Here we'll go over the basics on how to read drum tabs and drum notes. Let's get started then...

Drum Tabs For Beginners

Before you learn to read drum tabs, you should be aware that they are not a substitute for standard drum notation. They are and can be helpful in many ways, but they have serious limitations. It's very advisable to learn drum notes as well.

With that out of the way, let's start. Drum tabs are relatively simple and easy to understand. They tell you what, when, and how: what to play, when to play it, and how to play it.

Here is how a drum tab looks like:

As you can see, there is a bunch of symbols and letters. Tabs are made out of ordinary ASCII characters and numbers. You won't find any notes here. They are not so difficult to decipher.

Each line represents a different drum. Abbreviations at the beginning of each line tell you which drum to play. BD, for example, is a bass drum. Little circles and x's tell you when to hit it. The top line is the count (sometimes it's the bottom line). The vertical lines separate measures and dashes indicate timing. Each dash gets one count. And that's about it. Our example above is very simple, but when you learn what the symbols and letters stand for, it's

How To Read Drum Music

quite easy to understand more complex tabs as well.

Here is a little drum tab dictionary:

BD: Bass DrumSD: Snare DrumHH: Hi-hatLT: Low TomHT: High TomFT: Floor TomRC = Ride CymbalCC = Crash CymbalSC = Splash Cymbal

o: StrikeO: Accentg: Ghost notef: Flamd: Dragx: Strike (Cymbal or Hi-hat)X: Hit Hard Cymbal or Loose Hi-hat#: Choke (Grab Cymbal With Hand After Striking It)

Learn To Read Drum Notes

Learning drum notation will bring you to a whole new level of drumming. Reading drum notes it's definitely worth all the effort.

As in any other kind of sheet music, everything in drum notation happens on a staff. However, there is a difference – in drum notation different lines and spaces on a staff represent different drums, not pitches.

How To Read Drum Music

Here is how drum notation looks like:

This is actually a basic groove. It tells you which drums to play and when. To understand it, take a look at the next picture:

You can now probably see which lines and spaces represent which drum. At the beginning you can see a fracture – 4/4. This is a time signature which tells us how many counts there are in a measure and which note gets one count or beat. 4/4 means that there are 4 counts and that a quarter note gets one beat.

There are different types of notes. The 3 most common ones are quarter note, eight note, and sixteenth note. This is how they look like:

Knowing only this should be enough to understand and play the basic groove on the picture above. Of course, there is a lot more to be learned here, but this is a good start. When you're ready for more, visit Learn And Master Drums.

How To Read Drum Music