Drum Set Notation Guide

When it comes to drum music, there are a lot of different symbols that you will see. Some are standard, like a note ball, while others are specific to drums and cymbals, such as X’s, diamonds, and triangles. Other symbols indicate dynamics such as crescendo and decrescendo, which are used to signal gradual increases or decreases in volume.

Drum notation is written on a 5-line staff, just like musical scores for melody instruments. Notes can be positioned anywhere on the lines and spaces, as well as above and below them. Each line and space has a number, ranging from staff line 0 (the highest black line) to staff line 8 (the lowest white space). Staff lines 1-6 are called “invisible” because they don’t appear on the printed score, but can be felt when you play a drum set.

The most important thing to know when reading drum sheet music is the time signature. This is the two numbers stacked together on the left side of the drum chart. This will tell you how many beats a measure is, and which notes should be played on each beat. A typical time signature for drums is 4/4, which means each measure has four beats and that quarter notes get one beat each. Other rhythms can be written as well, such as whole notes, half notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes.

After understanding the basic note symbols and the time signature, it is helpful to familiarize yourself with the different types of rests in drum music. A rest is basically the opposite of a note, and it lets you know when not to play a particular drum rhythm or fill. There are a few different kinds of rests: crotchet rests, which last for one beat; quaver rests, which last for half a beat; and rests with no duration at all.

Another key symbol to understand is the slash that cuts the value of a note in half. This is usually seen on cymbal and hi-hat notes, but can also be used to signify rim clicks, where the drummer hits the cymbal with both the top and the bottom of their stick.

Finally, the dotted note symbols are a great way to show that a given drum beat should be hit harder or softer than usual. For example, a dotted half note would be struck twice as hard as a regular quarter note and a dotted whole note would be struck much more heavily than a regular whole note.

The drum input palette allows you to customize the instrumentation of the drumset by assigning keyboard shortcuts or mouse buttons to each of the voices. You can also edit the default voice in the Drum input palette with the Edit Drumset dialog if you need to change the drum kit for some reason. This is particularly useful when writing drum charts for a drummer that is using a different instrumentation setup than you. You can also create a customized drumset file and load it later from the File menu.