Guide to standard drums notation
Drumset scores are not so standardized as other instruments: every drummer, publisher or notation software can decide and declare is own mapping of the drum kit elements to the staff. Drumset itself is different from drummer to drummer, so it’s difficult to standardize the notation.
There are, anyway, some more standard symbols: snare is quite always the c 1 octave higher from the central, cymbals are marked as an “x” and so on.
Percussionist Norman Weinberg is credited for most important attemp to standardize the notatio. His “Guidelines for drumset notation” are used in drums scools and software. Here’s the document: 15 mb .pdf file, but it worth downloading.
Another good drumset notation scheme is on this .pdf document for the Audiograffiti software.
For who use Lilypond to write sheets, the standard and custom percussion staves are discussed in this document.
Some tips on how to improve your sheet music reading skills:
1. Read sheet without music, ‘playing’ voices in you mind and loud
2. Read the sheet while listening the song
3. Read the sheet playing it, without music, on the drumset (with and without click)
4. Play the song and read the sheet
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