How to Write Music for a Drumline

Are you a drummer getting good enough to start writing your own drum lines? Writing or reading drum music is like other types of sheet music; in the beginning, it takes time. The very old, traditional styles of writing sheet music mixed sound with a kind of mathematics, and even visual art, as ancient composers arranged notes on the page. For modern drummers, some reading and practicing is necessary as well as attention to detail.

Instructions

1. Know what you will be writing. If you are ready to try to notate a drum solo or line, it should be fairly well polished and standardized so you play it the same way each time. If it's your first time writing percussive music, consistency will help make it easier.

2. Get an empty score. Drum music is written on "sheet music" with lines, similar to a non-percussive score. Find drum music books with empty pages of sheet music to notate your own drum lines.

3. Find the proper line for each drum piece. Rather than moving notes around on the score, your notes will stay in the same place, since drums don't have melody. So for drum music, each separate "instrument" takes up its own line on the score. Many drummers say the hi hat goes on the top line, with snare in the middle and bass below, conforming to the idea that "lower" notes (in this case the boom of the bass drum, not melodically lower, but tonally deeper) goes below other notes.

4. Read and research the "tempo" notes. Score music is made up of different kinds of "timed" notes: these begin with the "whole" note (that takes up a whole bar), then the "half" note (half a bar), the "quarter" note (twice as short as a half) and so on. You will be establishing the drum beat for each drum using these notes, not by spacing notes out on the score (although you will keep them together by bars). Get good at recognizing and using these "tempo measures."

5. Write out your entire drum line in time, using the bar structure, and keeping the lines of notes clear, consistent and recognizable to the reading eye.

Resources

• Drum music writing tips.
• Drum and sheet music links.