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Back in university I received one of the worst drum charts I have ever gotten in my life.
It was a single bar of an (obviously copy/pasted) drum rhythm with repeat signs on either side, complete with a hilariously optimistic “repeat x 256”
The artist who gave me this chart was not a bad musician. Quite the opposite, in fact, he was a very talented pianist. He had an arrangement perfectly written for the cello and bassoon that he had prepared, but for whatever reason, his drum chart was really… REALLY bad. As I continued my post-secondary education, I realized that this wasn’t uniquely a problem with this one guy from uni… a LOT of people had no idea how to write or even begin to approach drums. Everything from final assignment projects, to studio charts, to professional gigging music has had at least one drum chart that made me stop and go… “Wait… REALLY?!”
In both post-secondary schools that I attended, trained drummers are expected to understand the basics of melodic sheet music. We’re expected to understand the notes on the treble clef, be able to write and understand scales and chords, and be able to write sheet music for instruments like horns, piano, strings, guitar, or bass. However, it never occurs to many musicians to learn the opposite: how to write for rhythmic instruments with the same level of proficiency. After scouring Youtube to try to find anything to help musicians with this, I came up empty-handed, and so I opted to create it myself.
”How To Chart Drums” is meant to be a resource for advanced musicians and arrangers who are already proficient with the basics of music writing, and are looking to write professional and legible drum charts for their drummers in a variety of styles. The charts are based off of the norm for a college-level band chart, and are written presuming that you will be handing these charts to a drummer who has never heard your music before, and is rehearsing with you minimally before your big gig.
Being the sneaky guy I am, these charts also have a second use. Drummers looking to practice their sight-reading can find time-stamps in the video descriptions that lead directly to the completed chart, so they can practice reading real gigging charts to real original music. On that note, all the music being showcased in these videos are original pieces written by artists that I’ve worked with in the past. Check out their music and show them some love! Their websites and Youtube Pages can also be found in the description of the videos.
I don’t expect this series to ever go viral, nor do I expect it to revolutionize the world of drumming, but I hope that those looking to improve their writing can look to this as an extra resource they can reference, if only to keep some poor soul from ever having to read “repeat x 256” ever again.