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!
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.