Writing Drum Tab For Drummers
Drummer tablature is useful for getting new songs right. We have used them in the past to get drum fills and beats right. It’s far easier to transcribe drum tabs than it is to write music notation. Even if you don’t know much about music and rhythm it is very easy to write out drum tabs. You can easily use your own symbols for each drum and cymbal. We find that this makes the pieces more readable as we know instantly what each symbol means. You don’t need to be able to understand time signatures too. There’s no need for confusing fractions like 13/16. With tabs you can let the grid do the talking.
The best way to practice writing drum tabs in my opinion is to use a maths copybook. They usually come with boxed grids. This means you can use the grid as the basis for your drum tab. The boxes are evenly spaced out and are small enough so that you can long patterns across the page.
I think the main issue with musical notation is that it’s very hard to learn. It takes a long time to learn what all the notes mean and how they relate to the beat. There are also old fashioned symbols like dots and double dots, which are an awkward way of looking at music. Music can be counted and counts can be divided. By using drum tabs on a grid it’s easy to explain rhythms to someone with very little musical knowledge.
You can learn how to read and write drum tabs in a very short time, even a few hours. Proper music notation will take a lot longer and sometimes up to months and even years.
It’s also very easy to find songs with drum tabs just by searching on Google. You’ll get loads of image results with tabs for your favorite songs. Music notation will be around for a long time but drum tabs aren’t going away either!
If you want to write your own tabs I suggest starting with some very basic drum beats. Check the link above for a few more tips and if you can get your hands on grid paper that will help too. Make sure to use a pencil when starting off as you’re bound to make a few mistakes here and there. Begin with the most basic drum beat you can think of and then work up to complex beats and fills. If you have a computer or laptop you can type out the tabs and print them out for use later.
I’ve been using drum tabs for many, many years now and I still use them, especially when learning a new song with my band. It’s super easy to jot down the main beat of the song so that I don’t have to remember it right away or record it.
Written by Shree from Ghost Note.