inside the music

Drum kit notation is an adaptation of the traditional notation system.

Roll your cursor over this stave to see how the main elements of the drum kit are notated - click to listen.
There are 7 sounds to find!

The notation actually has 2 parts on 1 stave - the cymbals part (crash, ride, hi-hats) with stems up and the drum part (kick, snare and toms) with stems down.

Each of those 2 parts needs to make rhythmic sense on its own.

!!!NOTE!!! The clef used for drum kit is either the double line percussion clef or the bass clef (used below).

Here are some examples of standard drum kit rhythms. Click to listen.