Drum tablature

Drum tablature, commonly known as a drum tab, is a form of simplified percussion notation, or tablature for percussion instrument. Instead of the durational notes normally seen on a piece of sheet music, drum tab uses proportional horizontal placement to indicate rhythm and vertical placement on a series of lines to represent which drum from the drum kit to stroke. Drum tabs frequenctly depict Drum patterns.

Unlike guitar tabs which often fail to accurately represent timing information, drum tabs usually describe timing information very accurately, however drum tab is much harder to learn than guitar tab.

Key or Legend

The number of lines in a specific tab will vary depending on the number of different drums used during a specific section of music. Below is an example of a basic drum kit.

  CC|-Crash cymbal----|[1]
  HH|-Hi-hat----------|
  Rd|-Ride cymbal-----|
  SN|-Snare-drum------|
  T1|-High-tom--------|
  T2|-Low-tom---------|
  FT|-Floor-tom-------|
  B |-Bass-drum-------|
  Hf|-Hi-hat-w/foot---|

Techniques

Tablature can use various letter and symbols to denote different cymbal types or other drum techniques. These are the tablature symbols that represent various techniques, though these may vary:

Cymbals

  |-x-| Strike cymbal or hi-hat
  |-X-| Strike loose hi-hat, or hit crash hard
  |-o-| Open hi-hat
  |-#-| Choke cymbal (grab cymbal with hand after striking it)
  |-s-| Splash cymbal
  |-c-| China cymbal
  |-b-| Bell of ride
  |-x-| Click hi-hat with foot

Drums

  |-o-| Strike
  |-O-| Accent
  |-g-| Ghost note
  |-f-| Flam
  |-d-| Drag
  |-b-| Soft one-handed roll
  |-B-| Accented one-handed roll
  |-@-| Snare rim

Example Drum Tab

Below is an example of a rhythm pattern characteristic of much popular music including rock presented in standard notation and then its corresponding translation into drum tab.

B = Bass drum HH = Hi-hat S = Snare drum

  HH|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-||
   S|----o-------o---||
   B|o-------o-------||
     1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a

References

1. ^ http://www.drumtabs.org/how-to-read-drumtabs.htm