Hi. My name is Aldo and I play drums for Hansom. If you’d like to hear our music, check us out at
www.youtube.com/hansommusic or
www.soundcloud.com/hansomband.
I took up Michael Alba’s drum program late last year, which I strongly recommend for any intermediate to professional level drummers out there. Just search “Michael Alba Drum Program” on Facebook.
One of the things I learned there was how to score sheet music for drums. Previously, I had only a little bit of experience with sheet music when I dabbled for a short time in drumming for my school’s theatre org. When I took sir Mike’s class, I found that developing an understanding of sheet music actually helps you “visualize” the sounds and patterns you can make with a drum set – or any instrument for that matter, which is probably why classical musicians tend to be so precise with their craft.
Since I started playing drums at gigs eight years ago, I’ve rarely ever encountered drummers who weren’t self-taught. This is not to discredit self-taught musicians out there, since the local gig scene is full of incredibly talented self-taught artists, many of whom I look up to. With that in mind, I’d like to take this time to encourage any drummers reading this to give sheet music a try. For those familiar with reading music tabs, it’s actually not that different, although traditional sheet music gives you more versatility and can be read in real-time playing if you’re experienced enough. I’m nowhere near that point, but I’d like to be.
This is a particularly useful skill for session drummers who don’t have too much time to learn a song, but wouldn’t just want to “wing it” by gig time. On the flip side, for bands who may need to hire session drummers, it would be much easier for a drummer who's literate in sheet music to learn your songs if you already have a drum score of your songs prepared. Unfortunately, sheet music for drums is very hard to come by. Due to intellectual property concerns, you usually have to pay to acquire sheet music online.
My current objective for myself is to practice transcribing drum pieces to sheet music as much as possible. However, I never really know where to start and what songs to choose. I feel like it would be more of a challenge if I could try transcribing songs that I’m not too familiar with or songs that I don’t choose for myself.
So here’s my proposal. If you would like to have a transcribed copy of drum score for a song or music piece, I’ll try to make it for you. For now, I’ll probably keep this a free service since I’m nowhere near the caliber of people who score music professionally. Since I’m still learning, the pieces you get may not be perfect, but at least you’ll still have something.
Here’s how it’ll work:
1. You email me your request at aldo.vergeldedios@yahoo.com, preferably with an attached file of the song, or a link to the song via youtube, soundcoud, or other sites.
2. I’ll reply (hopefully) within a week or two with a PDF file of the drum score for that song. Naturally, more difficult songs will take longer to transcribe.
3. I’ll post a link to download the PDF of the score here for anyone else to download for free. Don’t think that I should be the only one transcribing here! If anyone would like to transcribe music as well, please post here so that people needing drum scores can contact you.
My only request is for other transcribers to share their work here as well. I'll start by posting a legend for the corresponding sounds indicated by each "note" on a score very soon!
I’d like to encourage more sharing of ideas like these to contribute to the overall quality and culture among local musicians.
Please comment with any thoughts and suggestions to improve on this idea!
PS: For those looking for Music Scoring programs, I highly recommend Sibelius 7, which is what I use. I don't know any free downloads for it other than a sample version, but if anyone else knows any affordable/free scoring programs, please share a link to it so others can access it.
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Update (July 29)I'm still working on someone's request for Jesus The Same by Israel & New Breed. Medyo rusty nga lang ako at medyo nalilito ako sa bagsakan ng drums so it's taking some time. If anyone would like to try transcribing it as well, please feel free to give it a try.
Thanks to user harugrugrug for contributing Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5. I'm glad to see a list of scores starting to come together.
1. Breathe by Pink Floyd -
http://www.mediafire.com/download/mec51hyd2oil8o6/Breathe.pdf2. Time by Pink Floyd -
http://www.mediafire.com/download/9p2tjwvbzc4drno/Time.pdf3. Everything's Alright from Jesus Christ Superstar (1970 OST) by Andrew Lloyd Webber -
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ae60a5so502b7qf/06_Everything's_Alright.pdf4. Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (from user harugrugrug) -
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6xahn78hcvw923r/Moves_Like_Jagger.zip