What is a drum transcription?
In music, transcribing is the practice of notating a piece or a song as written music. Usually, this is done with recorded music that was previously unnotated.
A drum transcription is, in this case, a notated version of the drum performance from recorded songs. In rock music, drum parts are usually written and performed without notation. These drum parts can inspire other musicians to pick up a pair of sticks and learn to play the parts, figuring out performance tricks in the process.
The transcriptions on this website are meant to aid the learning process of aspiring drummers by providing readable versions of exciting, complicated drum performances.
Who is writing these transcriptions?
The transcriptions on this website are all written by Rosemary Coda Elizabeth. Coda is a drummer, percussionist, and electronic music producer. She has an affinity for rock, emo, post-hardcore, and math rock, and began writing transcriptions for these genres as a hobby.
Her music can be found on Bandcamp and Soundcloud
About MIDI and XML files
Most of the transcriptions on this website include MIDI and MusicXML versions. These files can be imported into your music program of choice, but they may look different from the notation of a song’s score. This is because they were created using an older version of Musescore 4, which had its drum set laid out in a different way than standard drum set notation.
The main difference is open hi-hats; In standard drum set notation, the open hi-hat is notated with an X on the space above the top staff line, with an o symbol above it. But older versions of Musescore 4 notated the open hi-hat with just an X on the topmost space of the staff.
Because of this, each score has two versions - one to be read, and one to sound correct in the program. The MIDI and XML files are based on the latter version. They can be imported into most music programs, and will sound accurate to the notated score given the correct instrument layout.
Standard Open Hi-Hat Notation:
Older Musescore 4 Open Hi-Hat Notation:
