Drumming Notes ( PART – 1 )
This notes explains the basics of written music specifically for the drums. So these five horizontal
lines are called the stave.
It is like frame upon which we can hang our music notes on each line represents a different drum or
symbol on the drum kit just like for written guitar music. each line represents a different string the
stave, is divided up into boxes called bars or measures. this is an empty bar of music our music notes
will be written in later each bar of music represents a certain number of counted beats in a song so
the longer or more counted beats a bar has the more music notes can be written inside it.
Okay let's talk next about how written bars and measures relate to the music we actually listen to,
most music in the world and especially the West can be felt or counted using groups of four beats
it's just a nice round number. That feels good to dance to, this is also why most music is written
down into bars that contain four counted beats.
each here we have what is called the time signature. It tells the reader the number of counted beats
in a bar this particular and very common time signature is written at the beginning of bars that
contain four counted beats in total because of this it is also frequently referred to as common time
or 4/4.
there are other time signatures used to represent different lengths of bars but we don't have to
worry about those yet for now we're just going to focus on bars of common time or for counted
beats.
Quarter Notes
, as we just established most music is written down into bars that contain four counted beats each so
it therefore makes sense that notes be given names based on how many can fit into a bar of
common time let me show you what I mean this note is called the quarter note
and as the name suggests each quarter note takes up a quarter of the bar in other words you can fit
up to four quarter notes into one bar of common time as shown here this bar has now been filled up
with music notes and so cannot contain anymore.
you may have noticed that each quarter note represents a single counted beat at the bar this is
important to remember because for written music the quarter note is commonly used to represent
each counted beat think of it this way a quarter note is equal to one beat of the bar I also like to
refer to each beat as the downbeat for example the quarter notes in this bar fall on the down beats
of beats 1 2 3 & 4 confusingly all rather sensibly depending on how you want to look at it music
notes retain their name and no matter how many counted beats a bar might have so for example
this bar of music contains say 6 counted beats and so can hold up to 6 quarter notes even though
each quarter note no longer strictly represents a quarter of the bar we still refer to them as quarter
notes this helps to keep things nice and simple as you can probably imagine before we move on to
some actual playing examples let me first just quickly tell you about the different parts of the note
and their position on the stave
Note Heads, Stems & Position on the Stave
this part of the note is called the note head
, and this part of the note is called the stem
the stem of the note can point up or down
and makes no difference to the way the note is counted or played it's simply a choice made by the
writer depending on what's easier to read or write as I mentioned earlier each line in space on the
stave represents a different part of the drumkit so a note placed here
This notes explains the basics of written music specifically for the drums. So these five horizontal
lines are called the stave.
It is like frame upon which we can hang our music notes on each line represents a different drum or
symbol on the drum kit just like for written guitar music. each line represents a different string the
stave, is divided up into boxes called bars or measures. this is an empty bar of music our music notes
will be written in later each bar of music represents a certain number of counted beats in a song so
the longer or more counted beats a bar has the more music notes can be written inside it.
Okay let's talk next about how written bars and measures relate to the music we actually listen to,
most music in the world and especially the West can be felt or counted using groups of four beats
it's just a nice round number. That feels good to dance to, this is also why most music is written
down into bars that contain four counted beats.
each here we have what is called the time signature. It tells the reader the number of counted beats
in a bar this particular and very common time signature is written at the beginning of bars that
contain four counted beats in total because of this it is also frequently referred to as common time
or 4/4.
there are other time signatures used to represent different lengths of bars but we don't have to
worry about those yet for now we're just going to focus on bars of common time or for counted
beats.
Quarter Notes
, as we just established most music is written down into bars that contain four counted beats each so
it therefore makes sense that notes be given names based on how many can fit into a bar of
common time let me show you what I mean this note is called the quarter note
and as the name suggests each quarter note takes up a quarter of the bar in other words you can fit
up to four quarter notes into one bar of common time as shown here this bar has now been filled up
with music notes and so cannot contain anymore.
you may have noticed that each quarter note represents a single counted beat at the bar this is
important to remember because for written music the quarter note is commonly used to represent
each counted beat think of it this way a quarter note is equal to one beat of the bar I also like to
refer to each beat as the downbeat for example the quarter notes in this bar fall on the down beats
of beats 1 2 3 & 4 confusingly all rather sensibly depending on how you want to look at it music
notes retain their name and no matter how many counted beats a bar might have so for example
this bar of music contains say 6 counted beats and so can hold up to 6 quarter notes even though
each quarter note no longer strictly represents a quarter of the bar we still refer to them as quarter
notes this helps to keep things nice and simple as you can probably imagine before we move on to
some actual playing examples let me first just quickly tell you about the different parts of the note
and their position on the stave
Note Heads, Stems & Position on the Stave
this part of the note is called the note head
, and this part of the note is called the stem
the stem of the note can point up or down
and makes no difference to the way the note is counted or played it's simply a choice made by the
writer depending on what's easier to read or write as I mentioned earlier each line in space on the
stave represents a different part of the drumkit so a note placed here
