Do drummers use sheet music?

@ElwoodBlues Thank you for posting this. Very interesting.

@Gusman My pleasure! Thanks for BC.

@ArishMell there are some charts that actually lack the drum chart. In our band that happens and the drummer just dies his thing!

@samueltyler2 It depends on the experience of the drummer, I suppose. I have seen printed music for various rock numbers, and they rarely indicate any drum parts unless a particular effect at some point is called for.

@dancingtongue Those swing-band drummers could read music to a high degree.

They used a heck of a lot of improvising and could be very egotistical, almost taking over the music at times. However, even though they didn't have the manuscript on stage, they still had to be capable of sight-reading to be able to learn their parts in the semi-formal arrangements used by such bands.

They did not just play the bass drum either. They used full kits.

I don't know if I still have it but I bought a copy of a book over 100 pages long, just on snare-drum skills. Written by Buddy Rich, it started with the basics of musical notation, then drum notation specifically, followed by the "Rudiments" (half-a-dozen primary rhythm and fill building-blocks) gradually moving into the arcane world of stroke-blizzards with names like "Triple Flam Paradiddle". Which of course is a Paradiddle containing three Flams... I didn't try to get that far.

It didn't seem to occur to them that played on a single drum, such a fancy figure would sound to anyone not an experienced drummer merely like a.... blizzard of strokes. Or a rather irregular roll.

......

"... bought a copy..." That's when most respectable towns had at least one music shop.

@OldBrit "descrescendo". Ye Gods! Who the Hell invented that b****y awful word?

I heard it first by chance on a Schools Radio music programme some years ago, and thought the BBC ought be ashamed of itself for using such a concoction.

Crescendo, like most formal musical terms, is Italian; and its opposite is Diminuendo - not "decrescendo"!

I notice though the example is American - i.e. of the nation that thinks an 'o' on the word "American" means plain black coffee is somehow Italian. The give-away being the words "Staff" (stave) and " Measure" (bar) - though it does use "bar line".

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I'd always known the foot-cymbal to be called the "Hi-hat" - I have no idea why - but a drum primer I bought, written by a strict-tempo dance-band drummer, called it the "Charleston Pedal", I assume its original name.

@Mamapolo2016

I see patterns but cannot seem to match it up to my memory's playback. Although my memory also has the guitar and vocals which s confounding. They should put words on the sheet.

@uncalled4

What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?

Homeless