Guide

How to write a drum part

Many arrangers write beautiful parts for everyone except the drummer, who gets "play something like the record". A clear drum chart takes five minutes and saves a lot of rehearsal. Here is what to put on it.

The drum staff

Drums use a five-line staff with a percussion clef. Each line or space is an instrument, not a pitch:

Hi-hats and cymbals usually take stems up, kick drum stems down.

Four grooves that cover most songs

• Pop / rock (4/4): hi-hat eighth notes; kick on 1 and 3; snare on 2 and 4.
• Ballad: hi-hat or ride quarter notes, kick on 1, cross-stick on 3, or half-time snare on 3 only.
• Waltz (3/4): kick on 1, hi-hat or snare on 2 and 3.
• Swing / shuffle: ride "ding, ding-a, ding" pattern, hi-hat foot on 2 and 4.

Write one or two bars of the groove, then use repeat signs or slashes with "groove continues" for the rest of the section.

What a drummer actually wants on the chart

1. The form: rehearsal marks and bar numbers for each section.
2. The groove for each section, written once.
3. Hits and kicks: band accents written as rhythm slashes above the staff.
4. Fills: where they go (usually the last bar of a section), with or without written notes.
5. Dynamics: when to drop down and when to build.
6. Tempo and feel changes, clearly marked.

Fills in medleys

In a medley the drummer often carries the transitions. Mark each join with "fill into new tempo", the new tempo marking (♩ = 118), and the new meter if it changes. If the next song starts with a count-in, write it.

From a recording

Medley Writer transcribes the drum stem of each song bar by bar (kick, snare, hi-hat and cymbals), detects swing and 3/4, and writes the groove and fills into a readable drum part.

More guides

• How to write a horn section
• How to write a lead sheet
• Instrument ranges and transposition cheat sheet
• Medley transitions that work: 7 ways to join two songs
• Medley vs mashup
• MP3 to sheet music: turning a recording into a score