What makes a good Drum Transcription?
When transcribing my top three priorities are Accuracy, Readability and Playability.
Poorly written transcriptions tend to overcomplicate simple drum parts making them unnecessarily difficult to learn. That’s why an accurate and well-crafted transcription can save you a lot of time and frustration behind the drums ultimately making your practice sessions more fun.
1. Accuracy
Kind of self-explanatory, isn't it?
Hearing and figuring out easy-to-miss details like Ghost Notes, different Cymbals and simultaneous drum hits can be tricky, but I have gotten very good at it over the past years.
Usually, I will notate every single detail that is necessary to make the transcription as true to the music as possible. However, if a drum part has e.g. four different Crash Cymbals, two Splash Cymbals and a China Cymbal (Terry Bozzio Style😁), I will probably just notate two different Crashes, a single Splash and the China, because it is more practical and improves readability and playability.
2. Readability
I try to keep my transcriptions as sight-readable as possible without sacrificing important details.
This is a sheet music example for bad and good readability - try figuring out the following rhythms:
You probably noticed that both bars are the same rhythm, but if you are like me, one of them almost made you vomit and one was just fine to read.
Which line of drum sheet music do you prefer? While the example before is absolutely not up for debate, this one is actually pretty controversial in the drumming community.
I definitely prefer the first version of this groove's notation, where every note is on the same voice, every stem faces upward and everything that's on the same quarter-note is connected with a single beam, maximizing readability.
However, some people prefer the second version, where Bass Drum and Foot Hi Hat are notated separately from the hands and to be honest I don't understand why.
3. Playability
A great music transcriber knows the difference between essential performance nuances (Accents, Ghost Notes, Articulations) and random, accidental human inconsistencies. Capturing only the essential information without over-notating and cluttering the page is very important for readability and playability.
If the transcription is more than two pages long, I place the page turns during rests or repeating sections if possible, so they don't break the flow.