Drum tablature, commonly known as a drum tab, is a form of simplified percussion notation, or tablature for percussion instruments. 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 frequently depict drum patterns.
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-------| BD|-Bass drum-------| Hf/FH|-Hi-hat w/foot|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:
|-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
|-o-| Strike |-O-| Accent |-g-| Ghost note |-f-| Flam |-d-| Drag |-b-| Soft one-handed roll |-B-| Accented one-handed roll |-@-| Snare rim
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-------|| 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The drummer typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks, and uses their feet to operate hi-hat and bass drum pedals.
A hi-hat is a combination of two cymbals and a pedal, all mounted on a metal stand. It is a part of the standard drum kit used by drummers in many styles of music including rock, pop, jazz, and blues. Hi-hats consist of a matching pair of small to medium-sized cymbals mounted on a stand, with the two cymbals facing each other. The bottom cymbal is fixed and the top is mounted on a rod which moves the top cymbal toward the bottom one when the pedal is depressed.
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone.
The ride cymbal is a cymbal of material sustain used to maintain a beat in music. A standard in most drum kits, the ride's function is to maintain a steady pattern," sometimes called a ride pattern, rather than provide the accent of a crash cymbal. It is normally placed on the extreme right of a drum set, above the floor tom. It is often described as delivering a "shimmering" sound when struck soundly with a drumstick, and a clear ping when struct atop its bell.
A blast beat is a type of drum beat that originated in hardcore punk and grindcore, and is often associated with certain styles of extreme metal, namely black metal and death metal, and occasionally in metalcore. In Adam MacGregor's definition, "the blast-beat generally comprises a repeated, sixteenth-note figure played at a very fast tempo, and divided uniformly among the bass drum, snare, and ride, crash, or hi-hat cymbal." Blast beats have been described by PopMatters contributor Whitney Strub as, "maniacal percussive explosions, less about rhythm per se than sheer sonic violence".
"The 'original' or traditional blastbeat is a single-stroke roll played between your cymbal and snare, with your kick playing simultaneously with every cymbal hit."
The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 909, is a drum machine introduced by Roland Corporation in 1983, succeeding the TR-808. It was the first Roland drum machine to use samples for some sounds, and the first with MIDI functionality, allowing it to synchronize with other devices. Though a commercial failure, it influenced the development of electronic dance music genres such as techno, house and acid house.
Brooks Wackerman is an American musician. He is the current drummer of heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, which he joined in 2015. His first album with Avenged Sevenfold was The Stage (2016). He is most known as the former and longest-standing drummer of punk rock band Bad Religion.
Josh Eric Eppard is an American musician from Kingston, New York and the drummer for progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria. He has worked as a solo rapper under the name Weerd Science and was the drummer for supergroup rock band Terrible Things. Josh was a founding member of the Woodstock, NY new prog outfit 3 along with his brother Joey and studio engineer Chris Bittner.
Carter Anthony Beauford is an American drummer, percussionist, and founding member of Dave Matthews Band. He is known for his ability to adapt to a variety of genres, and both his ambidextrous and his open-handed drumming styles. He plays the drums and sings backing vocals in the band. Beauford was ranked number 10 by a Rolling Stone magazine reader's poll in 2010 for greatest drummers of all-time.
Rod Morgenstein is an American drummer, best known for his work with the rock bands Winger and Dixie Dregs.
Pacific Drums and Percussion is a musical instrument brand established by the Drum Workshop Inc., in 1999, with the purpose of providing its percussion instruments at more affordable prices.
Joseph William Castillo is an American musician. He is best known for being the drummer of the hard rock band Queens of the Stone Age from 2002 to 2012. He is currently a member of Circle Jerks, The Bronx, DOOM Regulator and Zakk Sabbath and Sugartooth, with former bands including Danzig, Wasted Youth, California Breed, Zilch, and Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts.
Orchestral percussion refers to the various percussion instruments used in an orchestral setting. It may also refer to the act of playing such instruments in an orchestral style. Many music schools and conservatories offer training for musicians interested in developing their skills as orchestral percussionists. Typically, an orchestral percussionist does not specialize in one particular instrument. Although there is no exhaustive list of all instruments that an orchestral percussionist must be able to play, there are particular instruments that are frequently used in the orchestral repertoire. This includes timpani, snare drum, bass drum, xylophone, glockenspiel, triangle, and tambourine.
James Patrick Keeler is an American rock music drummer from Cincinnati, who is best known for playing in The Greenhornes, The Raconteurs, and The Afghan Whigs. He plays with both traditional and matched grips.
Percussion notation is a type of musical notation indicating notes to be played by percussion instruments. As with other forms of musical notation, sounds are represented by symbols which are usually written onto a musical staff.
Mika Kristian Karppinen, better known as Gas Lipstick, is a Swedish-Finnish musician, best known as the previous drummer of the Finnish gothic rock band HIM. He is also a drummer for other bands currently on hiatus, such as deathgrind group To Separate the Flesh from the Bones, heavy metal group Bendover, punk group Valvontakomissio, and punk group Ääritila.
In percussion, cymbal choke is a drum stroke or push which consists of striking a cymbal with a drum stick held in one hand and then immediately grabbing the cymbal with another hand, or more rarely, with the same hand. The cymbal choke produces a burst of sound which is abruptly silenced, which can be used for punctuation or dramatic fortissimo effects. In some modern music, namely heavy metal, it is "often employed to emphasize a particular beat or signal an abrupt conclusion to a passage." Cymbal chokes are used extensively by classical percussionists to muffle the sound of a cymbal in accordance with the composer's notation, or in an attempt to match the sustain of other instruments in the ensemble. "The effect, a sudden burst of sound, is [often] further strengthened by a single, simultaneous kick with the bass drum."
For 'choke' cymbal, strike the suspended cymbal with the tip of a wood stick and dampen the sound immediately after the duration of the note.
[In] ragtime [1890-1920]...a lot of time there would be a crash cymbal, or a choke cymbal as they called it, that was usually played with a mallet. They would strike the cymbal with one hand and choke it with the other hand. And there were different techniques for choking the cymbals. Sometimes, they would really cut the cymbal and make it real staccato...Or they would play other styles where they would let the cymbal ring a little bit and sustain itself, and then catch it.
José Antonio Pasillas II is an American musician best known as the drummer and co-founder of alternative rock band Incubus.
The Roland TR-707 Rhythm Composer is a drum machine released by the Roland Corporation in 1985.
Heavy metal drumming is a style of rock music drum kit playing that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States. With roots in blues rock and psychedelic/acid rock drum playing, heavy metal drummers play with emphatic beats, and overall loudness using an aggressive performing style. Heavy metal drumming is traditionally characterized by emphatic rhythms and dense bass guitar-and-drum sound. The essence of metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed, power, and precision".