Introduction to Reading Music

If you've never read music before or need a short reminder, watch this video for an introduction to the fundamentals of reading sheet music for the drums.

Transcription

In this video, I’ll explain how to read and play quarter note patterns on the snare drum.

There are 15 different patterns, but I’ll explain just enough so you’ll be able to figure out how to play them on your own.

For these examples, we’ll be counting to four. On each count, we’ll either play a note, or rest and do nothing.

Quarter notes and quarter rests each get one count.

Half rests get two counts.

In this example, we have a quarter note on the first count, so we play a note at the same time as we count 1. On count 2, we have a quarter rest, so we do nothing while counting 2, and we’ll also do nothing on counts 3 and 4 for the half rest.

Let’s look at another example.

Here we have a quarter rest on the first count, we so count 1 but do nothing. The second count has a quarter note, so we count 2 while playing a note. The third count also has a quarter note, so we’ll count 3 while playing again. And on the fourth count is another quarter rest, so we’ll count 4 but do nothing.

Let’s do on more example.

This one is aaaaall quarter notes, so we count one and play, count 2 and play, count 3 and play, and count 4 and play.

Check out my quarter note reading practice video and give these a try. They’re pretty easy and I’m sure you’ll pick them up pretty quickly.