How

To Read Drum Music

By Stu Segal and Jimmy Sica

Published by Liberty Holdings & Distribution, LLC

Kindle Edition MMXVII(REVISION 3 — 2016)

Copyright © 2012-2016 Stu Segal & Jimmy Sica
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 147509714X ISBN-13: 978-1475097146

Table of Contents
Introduction
How to Use This Book
The Framework Within Which Music is Written
What Notes Look Like
What Rests Look Like
The Time Signature
How to Count Notes
Triplets
Rolls
Other Kinds of “Rests”
Other Kinds of Triplets
Thirty-second Notes
Putting It All Together—Adding Your Instruments
Dynamics
Where to Start, Where to End, What to Repeat
Other Symbols, Note Heads, Articulations
You Can Read!
About the Authors
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


To our parents, whose love of music fostered our own,
and to Peggy and Rashmika,
without whom none of this would be possible.
 Introduction

What You Will Get Out of Reading Drum Music

It is likely you fall into one of two categories—either you are not a musician, have never read
music, and have decided to learn to play drums . . . or, you are a musician, have learned to play,
but have never been taught to read music. Either way, this book will benefit you greatly.

If you are completely new to playing drums, reading music will open up the magical world of
playing music. You probably love music, which is why you want to play. Well, every piece of
music you’ve ever heard can be written, and most of it has. Being able to read the music is the key
that unlocks the playing.

Now this is not to say that because you are able to read and understand the notes on paper you’ll
necessarily be able to perform them; just like all great musicians you’ll need to develop and
perfect proper technique. But the starting point of it all is the ability to read. The ability to read,
and then to practice, the techniques that will form the basis of your playing. The ability to read
and understand the genres and pieces of music you want to perform. Reading . . . it’s the
cornerstone of your musical education.

Suppose though you already play, but can’t read. First of all, if you’ve bought this book you have
already identified your own need to be able to read; there could be any number of reasons. First,
and most obvious, you’ve heard other drummers perform patterns and sounds that you just haven’t
been able to figure out, and you know if you could read you could see the exact way to perform
what you’ve heard. Second, perhaps you recently saw an ad for a job in an off-Broadway show,
as I once did, and it read: “Must be able to juggle, play an instrument, read music and perform
stand-up comedy.” (I could do the hard stuff, but guess what – I couldn’t read music, so I couldn’t
even apply.)

So perhaps you want to read to enter the world of music, perhaps you already play and want to
improve, or maybe you even want to pursue a career as a professional musician. Reading music
will open the door, and will provide you as much enjoyment and benefit as reading English.

Drum Music is Not Like Other Music

Generally when folks think about reading music, they envision “notes”—meaning they think each
note represents a certain tone or “pitch”. An A, a C, a G, and so on. And if you were playing a
flute or a saxophone this would be true; each note would represent a specific tone that is to be
played. If you were playing a guitar, piano, or other stringed or keyboard instrument there would
also be “chords”, which are combinations of notes that are to be played simultaneously. With the
exception of drums, instruments create notes which are a high pitch, or a low pitch, and are
therefore “pitched instruments”.

Drums are not “pitched”. A drum makes basically the same sound each time you strike it, though it
may be louder or softer depending how hard you strike. So for drumming, though the notes may
look the same as for other instruments, they do not represent the same thing. (There are pitched
percussion instruments. Xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphones are all percussion instruments that
produce notes of various pitches. Music notation for these pitched percussion instruments is more
akin to music for pitched instruments than it is to drums.)

In drum music, each note will tell you when to strike the instrument. The note may tell you
whether to accent by striking hard, or to strike softly. The note will tell you which instrument to
strike—it may be the snare, the tom, the bass, one of your cymbals, or the hi-hat. The notes will
tell you when to play quickly, or slowly. So drum music is all about what you are striking, when,
and how hard.

Reading Music, Versus Reading Drum Tabs

Perhaps you’ve seen “tabs”. You can find drum tabs for some popular songs, and you can also
find guitar and bass tabs. Tabs are a form of musical notation for folks who don’t read music.

Tabs are generally a series of x’s and o’s, placed amid dashes. The x’s and o’s tell you when to
play. In the example below the CC line is crash cymbal, HH is hi-hat, SN is snare and BA is bass.

This is an excerpt from a longer piece, and the instructions are to play at 135 beats per minute. As
you can see, you are supposed to strike each instrument according to the tab—on the first note you
would strike the Crash Cymbal, Hi-hat and Bass simultaneously, on the next the Hi-hat and the
Snare, on the next the Hi-hat and the Bass, and so on.

Interestingly, when you look carefully at how drum tabs are written, it is similar to the traditional
way that music is written; it tells you what notes to play, and when. But it lacks the framework
which allows written music to add both more information and nuance—and let’s be clear, the
depth and color of written music, versus tabs, is like the difference between Beethoven’s 5th
Symphony and a jingle for a TV commercial.

There are two problems with tabs. The first and most obvious is the system is intentionally
simplistic, and as a result tabs can’t properly communicate complex moves, figures and rhythms.
The second, and not so obvious, is that learning to read music is not very much more difficult than
learning tabs, and the advantage is enormous.

It would be similar to learning just the most often used letters of the English language, which
would limit you to learning only the words that use those letters—versus learning all the letters
and having access to all the words in our language.

Our assessment is—why spend the time to learning drum tabs and limit yourself? Put the same
effort into learning traditional notation and you will have no limits.

Why We’ve Written This Book

There are two reasons:

First, we’ve looked everywhere, and we can’t find a single book on how to read drum music.
Yes, there are books on reading music, but not drum music. Yes, there are many books on how to
play drums. And yes, there are tons of websites about playing drums, and learning drums. But
these sites all assume you already know how to read drum music, or you don’t care to learn.

The second reason is more personal. We have both enjoyed the benefits, both personal and
professional, of reading drum music—we would love to know that we helped you learn too.
 How to Use This Book

A few suggestions to help you get the most out of this book.

· Start in the beginning and do the book in order. The things you learn on the early pages
are required for the later pages. Learning to read music is like any other learning process—
the basics come first.

· Each example is explained on a left page, and the musical notation appears on the facing
right page. Thoroughly read the explanation on the left page, and refer to the facing
notation.

· Set up a practice pad and tap out what you’re reading.

· Many of the individual examples in the book are demonstrated on videos at our website.
For those examples, read the text, watch the video, then do the exercise yourself. Examples
which are demonstrated on video are followed by this message:

· Count the notes out loud. It will help you with proper placement of the notes.

· Practice the exercises. We have provided additional exercises for the examples in this
book, which you may download for free, at our website www.drummerSS.com. We
encourage you to download, print out, and practice the exercises; repetition will help
solidify the reading methods for you.

 The Framework Within Which Music is Written

Music is written on a background which is called a staff. The staff is comprised of five horizontal
lines on which the notes are placed. The space between two vertical lines is called a “bar”, or a
“measure”.

Music which is written for pitched instruments uses the vertical placement of each note on the
staff to signify what pitch is to be played—this is not true for drums. For drums, the vertical
placement on the staff indicates which instrument is to be struck.

Generally, written drum music will show, from the top of the staff to the bottom:
Crash Cymbal
Hi-hat played with stick
Ride Cymbal
High Tom Tom
Middle Tom Tom
Snare Drum
Floor Tom Tom
Bass Drum
Hi-hat played with foot

NOTE: It is possible (though not likely) that placement of instruments on the staff could differ
from the example above, based on the preference of the composer. It is also possible other
percussion instruments could be shown. In either of those cases, the composer will provide a key
or a notation.
What Notes Look Like
What Rests Look Like
 The Time Signature

At the beginning of every piece of music you will see what looks like a fraction, 3/4 or 4/4 or
perhaps 6/8, or something else. It is not a fraction, it is the “time signature” of the composition.

The time signature tells you how many beats there are in each measure, and the duration of each
beat. (We divide music into “beats”; the “beat” is the pulse of the music.) The top number tells
you how many beats per measure, and the bottom number tells you the length of each beat.

Let us consider 4/4 time. The top number tells us there are 4 beats per measure, and the bottom
number tells us that each beat is a quarter note long. That means there are four quarter notes, or
any combination which equals four quarter notes, in the measure—for instance, there could be 3
quarter notes, and two eighth notes (since two eighth notes equal a quarter note), or any other
combination equal to four quarter notes.

For the purpose of this book, we will keep nearly everything in 4/4 time. You will however see
other time signatures on other pieces of music—remember, the top number tells you how many
beats in a measure. The bottom number tells you the duration of each beat; if the bottom number is
a 4 then each beat is a quarter note, if the bottom number is an 8 then each beat is an eighth note.
So if you see a 6/8 time signature, you will know that there are 6 beats in each measure, and each
beat is an eighth note (or any combination which equals an eighth note) long.

NOTE: There are also 2 symbols that are sometimes used as time signatures:
When appears as the time signature it is called “common time”, and is the same as 4/4.
When appears as the time signature it is called “cut time”, and is the same as 4/4 except
everything is cut in half; whole notes become half notes, half notes become quarter notes, etc.
How to Count Notes



.

Now we know that to properly space our notes within each measure we need to count them as
sixteenth notes, so let’s try to read and play some measures that contain all the notes and rests we
have seen so far.

We have labeled the notes and rests, but to get the spacing correct, count everything out loud as
sixteenth notes:
1 E AN DA 2 E AN DA 3 E AN DA 4 E AN DA

Triplets
Rolls
Other Kinds of “Rests”
Other Kinds of Triplets
Thirty-second Notes
Putting It All Together—Adding Your Instruments
Dynamics
Where to Start, Where to End, What to Repeat
Other Symbols, Note Heads, Articulations
You Can Read!
 About the Authors

Stu Segal grew up in a house filled with music. Though not musicians, his parents were always
playing Broadway Show tunes, Harry Belafonte, Bobby Darin, Mario Lanza, and Al Jolson.
When Stu was six he heard the hound dog man for the first time, and his foot has been tapping
ever since.

Stu had a long career in banking, and later as the owner of motorcycle stores. At over 60, he
began to pursue his long-forgotten childhood study of drums, which led to re-learning how to read
music, hence the writing of this book.

Stu lives just outside New York City. He rides motorcycles, juggles balls, clubs & knives, listens
to rock ‘n roll and New Orleans jazz, and plays drums. You can find him annually at the World
Science Fiction Convention, the Westminster Kennel Club Show, various rock concerts and
motorcycle events, on the internet, and occasionally in the French Quarter. He is hard at work on
his next book with Jimmy; you can follow their progress at www.drummerSS.com


Jimmy Sica has been drumming on things since he was a little kid; before his parents got him
sticks he used the wood rods from old-fashioned clothing hangers. Originally self-taught, Jimmy
began drumming professionally at age 16, and has been working as an entertainer ever since.

Jimmy earned an undergraduate degree in music, and later graduated the American Musical and
Dramatic Academy, College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts, in New York City. AMDA,
which was founded by Philip Burton (step-father of the great British actor Richard Burton), gave
Jimmy the knowledge, training and discipline to develop into a well-rounded performer—
musician, actor, singer, dancer.

Jimmy has played drums with The Drifters, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Johnny Maestro and many
more; he has been a pit drummer for shows like Chicago, Pippin and Jesus Christ Superstar. He
has acted on both stage and screen. For many years he organized and managed his own band.

In the late 1990s Jimmy began teaching drums to aspiring students (he has, of course, also taught
them to read music). He continues to play professionally, is working on his next book, and
continues to teach drumming to select students.


For more information about books, personal instruction, or to contact Stu or Jimmy,
please visit our website, www.drummerSS.com
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cover Design by Stephen H. Segal

Thanks to Matt Patella for his input.

Thanks to Chad Criswell and MusicEdMagic.com
for his arrangement of Yankee Doodle.

And a big Thank You! to our “beta testers”:
Vanessa Ellis
Rashmika Segal
Pete Yachimovicz