Drum Tabs Intro
Oskar_Matzerath
information.
Drum tabs have become the standard way of sharing rhythms on a
newsgroup. There are many styles of notation used; the only
requirement is including a legend to specify what the symbols mean.
Box notation and traditional western music notation cannot be text
only.
IMPORTANT! Drum tabs only work with fixed pitch typefaces to have the
beats line up correctly. If your browser is not set to use a
monospaced typeface such as Courier, cut and paste the tabs into a
text application and set the typeface and font accordingly. Tabs will
not make any sense in a variable spaced typeface.
Common items:
Time:
A count shown as 1+2+3+4+ or 1-2-3-4- is sounded out as "One and Two
and Three and Four and".
A count shown as 1e-a2e-a3e-a4e-a is sounded out as "One ee and ah Two
ee and ah Three ee and ah Four ee and ah".
The ever popular Maasai three beat, "One and ah". This can be counted
out as a twelve to relieve monotony as "One and ah Two and ah Three
and ah Four and ah".
Accents:
Accented notes can be denoted by capitalization. Sometimes a ^ over
the accented beat is seen.
Weird time:
Sometimes when polymetric, compound, or irregular timings are used a
bar may be broken down into smaller counts typically 2s, 3s, and 4s to
assist in counting out complicated timings. Here an 8 beat minus a
half gives a stager step to the rhythm often encountered in Indian
music. It is counted as a 15 and might be broken down into 4443 or
332322, etc. An example of an eight plus a whole is a 9/8 celtic slip
jig (333).
Those who grew up with even meters often have a hard time adapting to
odd counts. This may require either alternating which hand starts the
pattern or adding a double strike with one hand. Try counting this
one, a 3322, count 1231231212, can you hear the Mission Impossible
theme in your head?
Polymetric counter rhythms:
Two separate beats that eventually come back to the same stating point
can be overlapped. The "Mother of All Polyrhythm's" is a two against
three:
| bar separator (do not count)
three |123123|
two |121212|
In Morse code this is a B (-...) dash dotdotdot!
The next complicated is the three against four:
three |123123123123|
four |123412341234|
Mediterranean Notation, (Doumbeck, Riqq)
Here the drum is held with the left hand resting on the rim of the
drum head. The Doum is played with the right hand unless special
notation is assigned therefore hand position is assumed.
D Bass, right hand, Doum
K Open, left hand, Ka
T Open, right hand, Tek
3 three finger roll
4 four finger roll
B slap, muting across head with left hand, second overtone
R ringing slap, muting with thumb in center of head, higher overtones
Examples:
Beledi, (90% of SCA and belly dance drumming)
beat 4/4
time |1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a|
D D tkt D tkt tk
chant Doum Doum teckatec Doum teckatec tecka
Notation to show repeat bars and ending. Play the first bar three
times and the ending once.
| 3 | 1 |
time |1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a|1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a|
D D tkt D tkt tk D D tkt DktkT
Daveed 15 (fast)
beat 15/4
polymeter 333222
count 123123123121212
time |1e-2e-3e-1-2-3-|
DkkTkkTkkDkTkTk
chant DoumkakaTeckakaTeckakaDoumkaTeckaTecka
More here:
http://www.blackroot.org/drumming/drumming.html
http://www.ionline.net/~bmassel/rythm1.html
Djembe and conga
West African
Some WA rhythms can be quite complicated and require many different
parts to make up the whole. These are typically not suitable for a
drum circle being hard to follow without extensive practice and
assignment of parts. The right and left hands are designated by the
mnemonic, having developed as a oral notation.
D bass, left hand (Dun)
G bass, right hand (Gun)
d open tone, left hand (do)
g open tone, right hand (go)
T slap, left hand (Ta)
P slap, right hand (Pa)
Modern tabs:
Contemporary drum tabs typically have a line for each percussion item.
For hand drums I like to use a separate line for each hand.
Examples:
Mambo 2/2
Bongo Conga
m macho c closed stroke
h hembra s slap
o open tone
Bongo
time |1e+a2e+a|1e+a2e+a|
R |M M m h |M M M h |
L | m M M m| m m M m|
Conga
time |1e+a2e+a|1e+a2e+a|
R |c S c O |c S c c |
L | c c O| c O O|
clave |x x x |x x x |
Djembe thing 4/4 (fast)
(Exercise using thumb for doubletime or for alternating hands.)
b bass
o open tone
t thumb open
s slap
time |1+2+3+3+|
R |B to to |
L | o B o|
Maasai waltz 3/4 (jumping dance fast)
b bass
o open tone
c closed stroke
time |1-a|1-a|
basic
R |O |
L | cc|
alternating
R |O c| c |
L | c |O c|
variation
R |B |S |
L | oo| oo|
h high bell
l low bell
two on three variation
time |1-a2-a3-a4-a|
first djembe
R |O c c O c c |
L | c O c c O c|
second djembe
R |B S B S |
L | oo oo oo oo|
bell |h l h l |
clave |x x x |
first hippy dude
|Eeeh ouu Ahhh waaaa Ouuu Eeeeeeeeh ooouuuu ...
Indian tals, bols, and theka.
If you want to learn Indian drum notation it is best to move to India
and become the servant and apprentice to a master for a few years.
Lots of stuff on the net. The notation uses Hindi characters and an
example chant is:
Dha Dha Din Ta|KiTa Dha Din Ta|TeTe KaTa|GaDi GeNa
Anyway if one wants to share a rhythm on the web, tablature is the way
to go. At the circle sometimes it would be nice to have the chant or
at least the count for things that are not easy to pick up on. Once I
was directed to start a rhythm and noticed that some people were
having a hard time getting it. I then realized that without thinking I
had picked a 5/8. Ever wonder why Led Zeppelin was so different, odd
meters. The count, 12312, would have made it easy.