Help with reading/writing notation

[Sutor]

Hi guys, I'm getting really frustrated with notation.
Its not the fact that I cant read the beats and play them, Its more like understanding why they are written that way.
For example with note values of beats and rests, I thought that you used rests and dotted notes to make up for the amount of beats that are sposed to be in a bar or measure but most patterns I look at have way more than 4 or 8 beats in a bar of 4/4.. AHH! I feel really retarded when it comes to this stuff so please don't just tell me to buy a book or a DVD.. I just need someone to explain to me in the simplest way possible!
I didnt take any of this stuff in when I was younger and I'm suffering now.

Cheers guys, Andy.

[drumhead61]

I will be interested as to what comes out of this thread since I too am very new to musical notes/notation and reading the stuff. I had to take a basic course 13 years ago in college and it was HELL getting through that class...now since I just started drumming I want...WANT to learn to read music so that I can be a well rounded player, so this thread will be of interest!

[Clayton_C]

First, figure out your time signature. There are more complicated ways of saying it, but I usually think of it this way: "the numerator is the number of beats in the measure, and the denominator is the type of beats." So in 4/4... there are 4th total 4th notes. 4th notes, of course, are "quarter notes." If you are looking at 6/8... there are 6 8th notes in the measure. 12/8? There are 12 8th notes in the measure, and so on. Where it gets tricky is FEELING these time signatures in terms of groove... but mathematically speaking, I just told you what you need to know.

Now, in one measure of 4/4, there are 4 quarter notes. (they look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Quarter_notes_and_rest.svg) There are other "subdivisions" as well, different types of notes that will fill in the empty spaces between quarter notes. There are whole notes (only one note in the measure - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whole_note_and_rest.svg), there are half notes (2 notes per measure - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Half_notes_and_rest.svg), quarter notes as I said, there are 8th notes (8 notes evenly placed in a measure, achieved by inserting a note between every quarter note - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Eighth_note_run.png), 16th notes (16 to a measure, achieved by inserting a note between every 8th note - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sixteenth_note_run.png), and the subdivisions continue indefinitely by multiples of 2, at least in theory. However, the fastest practical series of notes are 64th notes... anything beyond that will evolve into a buzz roll unless it's a REALLY slow song.

Counting is important. You can understand what a book is saying, but you can't read it to anyone unless you can SAY it. This is (sort of) what counting is like - saying what you read on a sheet of paper. It's a lot easier for drummers because we deal in rhythms rather that notes and tone, per say. A bar of quarter notes is read: "1 2 3 4," a bar of 8th notes is read "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and," a bar of 16th notes is read "1e&a 2e&a 3e&a 4e&a" and beyond that it takes more mental discipline to subdivide correctly, but by the time you are attempting to sightread 32 second note grooves, you should probably be able to "feel" it without too much mental exertion.

Rests, obviously, function to represent a BREAK during the measure in which you don't play anything. Like notes, they can be subdivided into twos. This article has a great picture with all of the types of rests featured: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_(music). It does, however use the more technical names. Respectively, they proceed this way: 4 measure rest (used mostly in classical music, I've found... especially orchestral percussion >:/ ), 2 measure rest, a Whole Measure rest, Half Measure rest, a Quarter Note Rest, An Eighth Note Rest, a 16th note rest, a 32nd Rest, and a 64th Rest.

You should be able to count the number of notes and rests in a measure and come up with the time signature. For instance, in this transcription of the "Soul Vaccination Groove" from David Garibaldi (http://drummerworld.com/Drumclinic/pics/garibaldisoulvaccination.jpg), you can tell that the whole rhythm is "spelled out" in 16th notes, as there are four sets of 16th notes in the measure. What I like to do is read the different parts of the drum set individually in my mind, them blend them together and play them. In order to do this, you have to understand the notation.
In the Garibaldi groove from the top of this paragraph, I start with the Bass Drum. It is the easiest, and since it is often only one 16th note away from the snare accents, I can see that it acts as an anchor in the measure, and that establishing it first will help me to understand the rest of the groove. If I am counting 16th notes (1e&a 2e&a...etc) then the bass drum pattern reads something like this (the dashes respresent 16th note rests): "1--a ---- -e-- 4---". The snare part tends to fill in the spaces where the bass drum doesn't play, so I'll conquer that section of the groove next. It reads: "-e&- 2e-a 3e-a -e-a." And then the hi-hat reads: "1-&a -e&- 1e-a 1-&-." The trick, of course, is to blend these elements and establish the coordination to make you hands do what your mind can... but that just comes with practice and a metronome!

All these ideas apply to odd time signatures as well, except that you will find different numbers of certain types of beats in the space of one measure. It just takes mental discipline to learn this stuff, that's all! I hated all my math classes and yet, this came easy to me... don't worry about it... just work slowly/surely through some good grooves (there are PLENTY of great transcriptions @ Drummerworld) and practice a lot!

Hope I helped. :)

[Clayton_C]

Sorry for the double post, but it just occured to me: another GREAT way to get a feel for all of this is to use a metronome with note divisions that play quarters, 8ths, 16ths, etc. That way you can slow down the metronome to a reasonable speed and try to wrap your head around a written groove.

[Sutor]

Thanks, Alot of great info in there. However, I'm still confused with rests, OK I get that they represent gaps but sometimes they're in line with snare hits or bass hits.
http://www.vicfirth.com/education/drumset/groove_essentials/GrooveEssentials1.pdf
This is just the first part of Tommy Igoes Groove Essentials poster.
On example 4, can you explain to me why the rests are there under each snare hit? This is what I dont get. Can you explain to me how the beats add up to 'make sense'.

Cheers, Andy

[k3ng]

I can understand your confusion. It does happen alot.

Let me try and explain.

Basically what you are looking at there in your Groove Essentials example is what we call voicing. It's actually moreso applied in other forms of music but in drum notations what we have is usually a 2 voice writing. You will notice that some stems are pointing up and some stems are pointing down. It's like a double layer.

Some notations use both the bass and the snare notes in the lower voice while maintaining the hihats or ride or cowbell on the upper voice. So when you look at those kind of notes, the rests are actually only applicable to the lower voice. An upper voice rest would be written higher up of the stave.

Universal rests are written in the center-ish of the stave and apply to both voices.

So referring to your example, the rests at the bottom of the snare add up with the bass drum notes to form 4 beats. And the hihat/snare notes on the top add up to also 4 beats.

Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.

Cheers

-KJ

[Sutor]

I cant believe its really that simple! Thanks alot mate :)
Before, I always added up all the beats in the higher and lower voicing but it obviously never equalled out. Its all starting to make sense now.

Thanks again :) Andy