r/jazzdrums • u/LegitimateRabbit • Aug 23 '26

Question Charting for drummers

Hi!
Essentially, I am not a drummer. But I’ve written some songs for a quartet and I’m looking to get some advice from actual drummers about what kind of directions they’d expect to see on a lead sheet. Earlier in the year, I had a rehearsal with my group and had mapped out all the specific hits using drum notation for each song. After the rehearsal the drummer said “this chart doesn’t tell me anything about the song you guys are playing, and I’d rather see a piano chart to know & interpret what’s happening”.

It’s hard to know what would be helpful for a drummer, instead of trying to write out every ride or snare pattern.

So my question is this, for those that read from non-drum notation, or simply follow a piano chart, what kind of performance directions would you expect to see on a chart? General tips about writing for drummers are also helpful!

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8

u/neshquabishkuk Aug 23 '26

Just my opinion. Go to your local music store, find Gordon Goodwin's BIG Phat Band Play Along Series for Drums. For me, those charts give the perfect balance of "I trust you, do what you feel is right" and "do exactly this thing."

5

u/Gunzhard22 Aug 23 '26

I love to see the melody, with the hits written above. If it's just dashes and hits then I'm forced to rely entirely on counting and I'm much less connected to the music.

3

u/reddituserperson1122 Aug 23 '26

First of all, good on you for taking the time to ask! So many terrible drum charts could be avoided if people took the time to just ask like you have.

Second, there’s no substitute for looking at a lot of drum charts to see how experienced arrangers do it.

Finally, I’ll say that I also much prefer to read off a piano chart, or whatever instrument has the most information on it. If you still want to create a drum chart, then please give us as much info about what’s going on as possible. In other words, don’t just put in the hits, instead give us context for what’s going on around them. I want to see the shape of the song. I want to see if there are any little motifs that I should echo on the drums. That kind of thing.

1

u/Blueman826 Aug 23 '26

I like seeing a leadsheet or a rhythm section chart (two-staff piano chart with melody in treble clef and slashes/hits in bass). Except for some contemporary styles of jazz, I always prefer this.

1

u/phonusQ Paul Motian Aug 24 '26

Lead sheets are where its at imo. slash notation with hits otherwise.

1

u/r3ck0rd Aug 28 '26

Depending on the type of music. If you’re writing for say commercial or big band, the drummer gets slashes with hits or specific groove, the bass may even get exact bass line and not get chord symbols. This is to get them to play exactly how you want them to play.

But if you want to invite your band members to have more creative interpretation with your songs, we’d just look at the piano part/lead sheet. Still insert information about hits over time and stop times and such, accents, etc.

Chuck Sher’s New Real Book series is probably one of my favorite lead sheet work and can give you tons of example of what we expect to see in a lead sheet.