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Drum tablature, commonly known as a drum tab, is a form of simplified musical notation. Instead of the durational notes normally seen on a piece of sheet music, a drum tab has a series of X's and O's, which represent when to hit each part of a drum kit. To show timing, they may have a line of text at the bottom of each bar, which generally goes '1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a', which is read as where the '+' symbol is said as 'and', sounding something similar to one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a, and so on.
Reading Drum Tabs[edit]
B = Bass Drum HH = High-Hat S = Snare Drum
HH|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-| S |----o-------o---|----o-------o---|----o-------o---| B |o-------o-------|o-------o-------|o-------o-------|
(A simple 4/4 beat.)
Usually there are the following lines:
CC|-Crash Cymbal----|
HH|-Hi-Hat----------|
Rd|-Ride-Cymbal-----|
SN|-Snare-drum------|
T1|-High-Tom--------|
T2|-Low-Tom---------|
NOTE: THis can be continued for as many toms as you have, getting lower each time.
FT|-Floor-Tom-------|
B |-Bass-Drum-------|
Hf|-Hi-Hat-w/foot---|
Generally there will not be that many lines during verses; the above is more common during fills. For example in verse there may be only 3 lines (bass, snare, and HH), while during chorus HH is replaced with RD, symbolizing a ride cymbal. Also, what to use to symbolize the drum can vary from tab to tab (eg. using 't' for LT).
Additionally, there are symbols to depict how the tabs should be played: (also from mxtabs.com)
Cymbals:
|-x-| Strike Cymbal or Hi-Hat |-X-| Strike Loose Hi-Hat, or hit Crash Hard |-o-| Open High Hat |-#-| Choke Cymbal (Grab Cymbal With Hand After Striking It) |-s-| Splash Cymbal |-c-| China Cymbal |-b-| Bell of Ride |-x-| Click Hi-Hat With Foot
Drums:
|-o-| Strike |-O-| Accent |-g-| Ghost Note |-f-| Flam |-d-| Drag |-b-| Soft One-Handed Roll |-B-| Accented One-Handed Roll |-@-| Snare Rim
Interestingly, the method of showing the notes to play in the game DrumMania essentially employed a six-line drum tablature:
HH|--------| S |--------| B |--------| (rotate it counter-clockwise by 90 degrees) HT|--------| LT|--------| C |--------|
Unlike guitar tabs which often fail to accurately represent timing information, drum tabs usually describe timing information very accurately.
Drum tabs can be created, edited and converted to standard drum notation with TabTrax and Dtab software.
External links[edit]
- Mxtabs - Drum Tabs: Over 12,000 Drum Tabs
- [1] Tab browser
- One Love Drum Tabs - Tab site specializing in funk tabs.
- Dtab - Drum Tab editor with import/export and play back.
- TabTrax drum tab converter, editor, player
- Drum Tab Printer, converts tabs to notation