Chapters
- 01. Why should you learn to read music?
- 02. What is the difference between the drum tab and sheet music?
- 03. What are the best free drum sheet music websites?
- 04. Where to find tutorials for reading drum sheet music
- 05. How to start reading drum sheet music?
- 06. How to make your own drum recordings
- 07. How to get good at the drums
If you hope to become an established drum soloist one day, it isn't enough to just learn the drum basics.
You could be making progress and start to sound good, but you are doing yourself a disservice as a percussionist if you are not ensuring that you have a solid foundation as a drummer. If you want to be the best drummer that you can be, whatever your level of mastery is, we encourage you to engage with the basics of sheet music.
Reading sheet music for the drums is not just about knowing how to read notes. Think about how knowing to read drum sheet music allows for more efficient communication between you and your band. Or if you are going solo, you can quickly progress as an artist as you can share sheet music with other artists and collaborators.
Getting access to new songs, learning a new style of music, trying new drum patterns and learning how to play new drum beats faster all come with the knowledge of sheet music. This can make you a fantastic composer too, especially if you want others to be able to read your musical pieces and play along.
Don’t hide behind your drum set and get comfortable: music notation is essential for your true talent to shine. Let's take a look at how to get started.
Why should you learn to read music?
If you want to pick up a musical instrument, most of the time you are encouraged to learn music theory, the theoretical way of reading music. You may find that music theory isn’t the most fun to learn, but it does make it easier for you to read music in general.
Let’s say we start from scratch and you’d like to pick up the drums. Here are some choices for you to decide how you want to learn the drums:
- Learn music theory so that you can read drum sheet music
- Not learn the theory and learn to read drum tabs
- Learn everything by ear.
As you can see, there is not just one way to play the drums. Options A and B will require you to memorise some notations and symbols and then be able to recognise them when playing a musical piece. It just depends on whether you would like to devote your time and energy to music theory.
You may be surprised by the last choice, but it’s true that many musicians have the talent for learning music by ear. All the members of The Beatles learned to play by ear - none of them could read or write conventional musical notation! People who can play music by ear are able to reproduce a musical piece they have heard without seeing it in sheet music form.
It is often considered a gift as not everyone can play music by ear. However, it is becoming less and less unusual for people to play the drums by ear because ear training can be provided when you take drum courses in school.
The advantages of learning to play the drums by ear include honing the ability to correct false notes while countering the issue of rhythm problems, normally faced by those who fully rely on sheet music.
We do want to point out that not learning music theory has its clear limits. Without this fundamental knowledge, you could be placed at a disadvantage and not be able to create the music you want. For a serious percussionist, this is almost similar to not knowing how to read, aka being musically illiterate.
What is the difference between the drum tab and sheet music?
After all this talk about music theory, you may be curious as to why we want to encourage you to consider either the drum tabs or sheet music if you want to learn the drums. Apart from being written quite differently, let’s explore what makes these two ways of learning important to your growth as a percussionist.
What is sheet music?
If you’ve ever watched an orchestra perform, you’ll see that they always have papers laid out in front of them, usually on stands or pedestals, that they flip through from time to time. Well, what they’re reading is sheet music, which allows the orchestra to perform as one.
Observe a piece of sheet music closely and notice there are several rows of grouped lines together. These groups are five-horizontal lines that provide spaces for music notes, clefs, rests and other musical notations to be written.
These musical notations will tell you how fast or slow to play, how soft or loud the notes should sound, or if you need to repeat parts of the musical piece. Sheet music is recognised by most musicians - not just drummers, but also those playing every other musical instrument.
What are drum tabs?
At first glance, you may notice simple symbols such “Xs” and “Os” on a drum tab, yet these symbols are what drummers can follow to create a complete musical piece.
Drum tabs, which is a shortened form of the term “drum tablature”, use lines and symbols different from traditional musical notation, but are generally made up of the same number of lines as sheet music. It’s basically simplified percussion notation.
Here are some of the most basic drum tabs:
- B = Bass Drum
- S or SN = Snare Drum
- H or HH = Hi-hat
- C = Cymbal
- T = Tom
Remember those Xs and Os? They can tell you how you should hit the drums. A lower-case “o” means a strike or normal hit, while an upper-case “O” means an accent or hitting the drums harder than normal. Dashes tell you not to hit the drum during a certain beat. So a drum tab telling you to play the snare drum can look like this:
SN -o- -o- -o- -o- -o
Drum tabs vs. sheet music, which is better?
Drum tabs are considered the easiest way for drummers to learn to read drum music. Unfortunately, this is only meant for the drums and not other types of musical instruments such as the guitar, piano and ukulele. We could say that learning the drum tabs will truly benefit you if the drums are the only instrument you want to play.
Nonetheless, this style of playing the drums has its benefits, particularly for budding percussionists. Drum tabs act as a visual cue that accurately tells you which drum to play and what to do with that drum. Sheet music doesn’t have this benefit.
On the other hand, sheet music simply isn’t specialised to the drum. Once you learn this skill, you can read music for all instruments. Sheet music communicates metering, rhythm and harmony, which is great for both soloists and band members (if you need to be more precise about the timing of what you are playing).
To start playing the drums with sheet music, the only additional things to learn are the symbols of the drums and cymbals, along with their placement on the sheet. You can definitely get your music theory down!
Check for great free drum lessons in Malaysia here.
What are the best free drum sheet music websites?
Here, we'll talk about drum sheet music and not tablatures!
There are many drum websites on the internet, but they are not always of equal quality. It is important to realise that it is often the authors of the site who make these drum transcriptions. They write what they hear and make all of the sheet music themselves, so if they are not a very good musician, mistakes may be transcripted too.
Drum sheet music will become useless to you if there are many errors in the authors’ interpretation of musical pieces. But since these websites are free, that’s already a huge bonus! When you download drum sheet music for free from these sites, you can save up on potential subscription costs.
Just remember that all sheet music requires thorough checking before you learn it blindly. It is important to make sure that the sheet music matches what you hear from the song.
The Drum Ninja
One of the better drum transcriptions out there, you should check out The Drum Ninja if you are looking for both high-quality and easy-to-read sheet music. The sheet music shared on this site is known to be accurate to those who want to play the drums like the original artist.
You’ll find scores from popular groups with percussionists, from the likes of AC/DC and Blink 182, to Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon. New sheet music for drums is added every week to the website, but you can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest sheets.
Free Scores
This is an interesting free website that makes use of filters to help its users navigate their way through an expansive library of sheet music. After selecting “Drum” in the “Instruments” filter, you can also search for music sheets according to your level of mastery, musical genre, and even find the most downloaded scores.
Did we tell you that many authors put up drum transcriptions on this site? The advantage is that you can read user comments and reviews to see if scores from a certain author are worth downloading. Once you are satisfied, you can download your sheet music in PDF format.
Muse Score
Another website that uses navigation filters, but we were pleased to find that the “Percussion” sheet music includes non-conventional drums, such as the rototom drum, the Cuban timbale, and even the Japanese taiko. You are in luck if you are picking up any of these instruments!
The scores are of good quality as well although there are different contributors uploading their sheet music to share with the larger community. Again, the scores are sorted by level, artists and style. Music is regularly updated so you can find both popular and classical scores.
8notes
Perhaps one of the easiest websites to access free drum sheet music. 8notes is practically designed to help you find music scores easily, either by instrument, musical genre or style. Click on any score you’re interested in, whether they are old or new songs.
This site also has other free resources and lessons, especially if you are yet to learn how to read sheet music. So while it isn't dedicated just to the drum, it’s still an invaluable free resource.
It’s awesome to be able to learn the drums for free anywhere and anytime.
Where to find tutorials for reading drum sheet music
While you’re browsing for free drum sheet music at the above websites, you should also look out for tips on how to read the scores as they are usually provided on the same sites. Some may ask you to pay for their subscription service before you can access their tutorials, so read carefully if you don’t want to spend unnecessarily.
Fortunately, there are plenty of free tutorial videos out there to help you read drum sheet music, along with other content to build your knowledge about everything percussion. Ready to look at more free resources?
Daily Drum Lesson
You might be surprised to find that many of the tutorials on this channel are less than or just over a minute long. But these are fantastic, quick ways to pick up on sheet music because Michi Held, the drummer you’ll meet on Daily Drum Lesson, puts up on-screen musical notations and tempos to follow along with his playing.
But hey, you want to be able to read drum sheet music in the first place, right? His video titled “How to Read Drum Notation”, which has over 300,000 views, is all about being able to recognise a notation, decipher it and then play it.
Michi has made reading sheet music for the drums a lot clearer and easy to understand for first-time drummers. Once you’ve made it through this video and have the basics down to read sheet music, check out his Beginner Lesson series. And yes, he continues to show notations of everything he plays while helping you understand important drum concepts.
DrumsTheWord
Rob, who runs this channel, has established himself as an important figure for “everything you need to know about the drums”. Apart from reading drum music, you can find videos for famous and popular drum beats, drum solos, and how to play your favourite songs.
Check out his video on “How to Read Drum Music”.
Although the video is about nine years old, it’s still a great lesson that drummers can keep going back to, even if they are already able to read sheet music. That’s because Rob gives a thorough explanation of how to read drum sheet music in not just one, but three separate videos. Each video highlights different elements in detail, such as quarter notes, sixteenth notes and eighth-note triplets.
It’s a great revision for new and old percussionists, and allows one to fully understand everything about playing the drums and even tips for how to make your style of playing attractive to your audience.
How to start reading drum sheet music?
Ah yes, even with your free sheet music and tutorials, you may be wondering where you should start. Don’t fret, we’ve got a few more tips for you if you need some help with deciphering your drum scores.
Start slow
You may be tempted to hit the perfect crash on your cymbals, but it is crucial to take it slow at first when you are just learning to read sheet music. You’ll find it a lot easier to read musical notations, often even more accurately, when you play the drums slower. Begin to play at the normal tempo once you are accustomed to reading the score.
Get your parts down
To be able to read the score, you need to know where and how the notes fit into the score. What we mean is you should learn to write the drum parts out yourself to see how the score is written. Use musical notation software like what’s provided on Muse Score or Noteflight to re-create the score you are playing. And we know that…
Count out loud
…sounds funny, but it’s so important to keep to the right rhythm for the drums to sound right. In the same way that you would rely on a metronome, counting aloud can help you figure out whether you are playing the notes properly and the pauses you need to take in between notes.
Play to songs
A fun way of getting into drum notation! Find fully-transcripted songs that you enjoy and play along to them following the sheet music. You can even opt for backing tracks, or change up the score where you become the lead drummer! Whether you are playing as the star or as the accompaniment, you’ll get used to sheet music in no time.
On top of that, keep to a regular practice schedule - we can already see your reading abilities improving. You should also attend live percussion shows to get inspiration from other musicians.
How to make your own drum recordings
There are many free tools at your disposal, and there is a good chance that you will find the backing tracks you are looking for to accompany your drums. But how can you see your progress, especially if you are practising alone using free online methods?
There are two things that you can do: the first is to compose your own drum sheet music, and the second is to record yourself playing the drums. You may find it complicated the first time that you do write and take videos of yourself, but after that, it will become easier. You’ll finally see your sheet music being fully adapted to your drumming style.
Tips to create successful drum recordings
- Grab a pencil, an eraser and a sheet of paper: before making any transcriptions to sheet music you should first jot your ideas down. This also gives you room if you make any mistakes when you start.
- Start with a simple and short piece. These may be a few minutes in length and make use of standard beats such as the 4/4 beat.
- Get used to the tempo and rhythm of the song: you can use a metronome to help with that.
- Remember we mentioned starting slow? You can use free audio software like Audacity or Wavepad to slow down the song.
- Figure out the structure of the song: Often it's an intro, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, and a finale. This can, of course, vary according to the length of the piece and the number of measurements.
- Make a table with the times and names of the drums and cymbals and fill it up according to what you hear.
- Take it a step further by formatting or creating musical notations, such as through Musescore which is a free and easy-to-use application. You’ll be making your own sheet music!
All of these tips involve developing a solid ear for listening, which is essential to successfully creating your drum recordings. So are you ready to find or create your own sheet music?
How to get good at the drums
These are not the only things you can do to perfect your ability to read and understand drum sheet music. A lot of the time, even if you are the best student, there are still concepts that are difficult to grasp without the guidance of a tutor.
Take Superprof for example. With over 900 tutors who specialise in teaching the drums, learners not only pick up how to read drum sheet music, but increase their knowledge of up-and-coming drum concepts, learn to play live, or even have the chance to collaborate with other musicians!
How is this possible? Well, apart from offering a tailored one-to-one teaching option for students to really focus on their lessons, many Superprof drum instructors are masters at the drums, having completed their education in music, whilst carrying years of experience as both teachers and performers on the big stage.
For any level of learning, you are sure to find the tutor who can best fit your drumming needs. Visit Superprof today and take your first drum lesson for free!
The platform that connects tutors and students
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating.
Loading...
