Positional Drum Notation

Sebastiano Bea, Mishel Johns

Abstract—Sheet music designed for pitched instruments does not translate well to drum music. Our prototype drum set music
notation is designed to allow efficient display of information and easy interpretation especially by novice learners. The notation maps
the instruments in the drum set horizontally to match the usual location in the drum set, and adds easily distinguishable icons that
visually resemble the instrument. Sections with identical music are consolidated and marked in a timeline for the musician to follow.
Index Terms—Musical Notation, drums, positional mapping, vertical orientation

I N TR O DU C T IO N
Musical notation has been historically designed for instruments
with pitches. The higher the note is on the score, the higher the 1 R E L AT ED W O RK
pitch. Notes are seen as an ordinal variable, as they can be
In this section we will present different notation systems which
compared. With drum sets, however, this distinction falls, as there
we have identified along with the main pros and cons of each one.
is no (obvious) direct way to compare the sound of each drum.
The bass drum may have a lower frequency compared to a crash 1.1 Traditional Music Staff Notation
cymbal, but they differ by many other factors that are not easily
It is the current standard for drum music notation. It is based on
comparable. Drum sounds are much more "nominal" rather than
the same rules that govern notation for other instruments. Each
"ordinal", as they are so different that they cannot be ordered
line / space on the score corresponds to a specific drum
quantitatively. At the current state, drum notation has been
component to play. Round notes are used for drums while other
directly obtained by "adapting" the classical music notation to a
symbol are used for cymbals. Refer to fig. 1 for a common
drum context. Each line on the score corresponds to a drum part
mapping. There is not one universally recognized mapping; this is
and the symbol of the note changes to show different ways to play
sometimes the cause of misinterpretation in the notation.
the drum part ( for open hi hat vs. for closed hi hat).
Drum notation is not related to the characteristic of each
drum part, and often drummers don't use any notation at all (what
Norman Weinberg has called “improvisatory frameworks” (1)).
We have also witnessed different standards for drum notation,
that usually confuse the reader. There is some evidence of this
notational chaos in the literature. “Notation for drums and
percussion varies considerably from arranger to arranger and
from publisher to publisher. Many notators have created their
own symbols in an effort to cater for the huge array of percussion
instruments and techniques” (2) and again “an examination of the
published resource materials and performance literature reveals
that composers, arrangers, editors, authors and educators often
embrace different views on the subject.” (1).
In his analysis, Weinberg has “avoided a discussion of
the conventions of normal musical layout” (1), whereas we are
going to challenge these conventions. Notation should: “serve as a Figure 1: Common mapping of drum parts to music score (4)
means of preserving music (although incompletely and
1.1.1 Pros
imperfectly) over long periods of time, facilitate performance by
others, and present music in a form suitable for study and This notation is friendly towards other musicians who already
analysis.” (3). We think it possible to devise a new notation that know how to read it. It encodes all the information commonly
would improve the interpretation by others. needed in a musical piece (time keys, duration of notes, bar
Our idea is to map drum notation to a web interface subdivision…) and is applicable to any musical piece. As it is very
where vertical position represents the time / timing and old, it was meant to be written by hand, and is therefore easily
horizontal dimension represents the spatial layout of the drum sketchable.
set. We reasoned that it is much more straightforward for the 1.1.2 Cons
reader to map the notation to a spatial position of the drum part
rather than an arbitrary height on the score. The position of the drum parts on the score don’t have a logical
Our project outline is: sense. There are no mathematical relationships between drums
1. Define the characteristics of the new notation part (unlike the relationships in pitch with other musical
2. Create a web interface to write down the instruments). In general drum parts that are positioned higher up
notation in the drum kit occupy the higher lines, but a lot depends on the
individual set up.
3. Implement printing from web interface
Drum parts are often made up of the same sequences
4. Implement interactivity with the software
which are repeated over and over again. This notation does not
have an ideal way to convey that information, and often results in
the same pattern of notes being written repeatedly on the score.
 Finally, this notation is mainly meant to be static and non
interactive, as it is meant to be printed and viewed on paper.
Recently software has been developed to automatically scroll, 1.3 Klavarskribo Notation
though it is not widespread. This notation was invented at the start of the 18th century to be
more easily readable. It was conceived for organs, but it expanded
1.2 Notation Used in Music Games to other keyboard and string instruments. It is characterized by a
In the past 10 years an array of musical games have been vertical score, mapped to each note of the keyboard. Music is read
developed where the user plays a mockup simplified version of an top to bottom. Black notes correspond to black keys, whereas
instrument (guitar or drums). The game displays notes that fall white notes correspond to white keys. The direction of the stem
from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. When they indicates which hand should be used to play the note
reach the lower part of the screen, the user has to play them. The
most surprising aspect of this notation is that most players have
no previous musical experience, but they still to play the (few)
notes of the game. Refer to fig 2 for a screenshot of one of these
games.

Figure 3:A klavar score, with an image of a keyboard to show

mapping of notes (6)

1.3.1 Pros
The notes are mapped to their position of the keyboard with
respect to the player’s point of view. This yields a particular
benefit when multiple notes are played simultaneously. There is
no connection between the time and duration of the notes and the
color / position of the note. It encodes all the necessary
information from the standard notation.

1.3.2 Cons
Figure 2:Screenshot of a music playing game. This game has four When a whole keyboard is considered, the score gets very wide
drum components, each mapped to a different color and position and is mostly empty. There are also no ways to show repetition of
(5) bars or sequences. The grid is very heavy, so there is a cluttered
1.2.1 Pros view, especially given the lines attached to the notes.
Some users may find it invasive for the notation to also
This is a very dynamic note visualization framework, with totally encode finger and hand to be used to play a note. For more
automated scrolling. The gaze of the user is always fixed on the complicated songs, the user might prefer to have autonomy in
screen and does not have to move very much. The notes “come to deciding that.
him” rather than having to move the eyes to follow the flow of the When we consider drum notation, not all the encodings
song. of Klavarskribo should be necessary.
In order to make the notes more easily recognizable by
the user, each note / drum hit is assigned to a color. The position
of the notes on the screen is linked to the relative positions of the 1.4 Colored Music Notation
drum pieces on the drumset (which is sold as one piece and
There have been numerous patents and systems which have been
therefore cannot be modified).
registered to teach music through coloring the notes (instead of
1.2.2 Cons having them only black). Through studies conducted by Rogers,
The notation has been created for the game, which is a very this notation seems to improve the learning of music at initial
simplified version of real music. For this reason it does not carry stages, even though students tend to memorize only the colors
information that is important to have with music like time figures instead of the position of the notes (7).
or bar subdivision. It is also unclear what would be the results if
applied to a real drum kit (which has more than 4 components 2 M ET H ODS
usually).
2.1 User Needs
It would not be ideal to communicate with other
musicians, as there is no reference to the part of the piece which We identified different user’s needs. These relate to three
is currently being played. It is not meant to be printed, categories.
therefore there isn’t a way to have a complete view / snapshot of
the song. There is also no way to represent repetitive sequences.
2.1.1 Readability 2.3 Design Requirements
The notation should be easy to read and ordered such that there Based on what we learned, we settled on a few design
will be a continuous flow of the gaze of the reader. Each symbol requirements we found to be the most important:
should clearly define one action to take and it should be codified - Easy to understand (‘Intuitive’) notation – icons and
in order to provide to provide no ambivalence, even to people location for an action should correspond to the form or
with little experience with the notation. There should be only one the instrument or the sound it makes, and to the location
unique way to interpret a specific transcription. in the drum kit. [testable by showing drummers the
icons and the corresponding drum kit and asking them
2.1.2 Practicality outside of playing to guess which corresponds to which]. This requirement
One of the main functions of notation is to be carried around and might also allow novice learners to understand the
to be a communication medium between two different musicians. different parts of a drumset without a teacher
Traditionally music was written on paper (and still mostly is), - Icons that are easy to distinguish – icons that show a
however, we envision that most of music will soon be visualized particular instrument must be easily distinguishable
on screens. Therefore, our notation should be both effective on a from those for another instrument or for a different
printed piece of paper and on a interactive computer / mobile action on the same instrument [testable by having a row
device screen. of icons of one kind with one exception, and checking
how long it takes for users to detect the different icon]
2.1.3 Transitionability
- Able to display different “hit” types (open Hi Hat, closed
It would be easy to introduce a new notation to a world which Hi Hat, foot Hi Hat, snare rim, ride cowbell, ride cup, etc.)
doesn’t have any. However, we have to consider that the current - Able to display timing of actions (beats) in a way that is
drum notation is the standard among musicians. They are used to easy to visually measure (with bars)
reason in terms of traditional drum music, therefore, our notation - Ability to Reposition instruments based on personal
will have to keep this into account and ensure that it is easy to drum kit positioning
transition from one to the other - Ability to print to paper so it doesn’t need a digital device
- Ability to be quickly sketched by hand instead of only
Our solution might not be able to meet all of these needs, but it is using a digital editor
important to aim to satisfy as many as possible. - Display in a browser across devices so users aren’t
limited to a platform
2.2 Design Insights - Allow scrolling the current view to follow music, ideally
A few key insights about drum music and about the way auto-scroll with music given a start time and a beats-
drummers read music from our testing inspired the design of our per-minute setting
solution: These requirements were used in evaluating our ideas during
- Drum set music is very repetitive in most genres – there prototyping, and in designing tests during user evaluation.
are many repetitions of the same 4,8 or 16 bar sections.
Even inside these sections, the differences between bars 2.4 Design Prototyping
is often only in the first notes (the beat at the beginning One of the first design decisions to be made was to allow the
of the bar, when sometimes the cymbals or the ride is instrument placement in the drum set to match the placement in
added). Examples of these sections include the intro, the the notation, and perhaps allow easier identification and decision
outro, the verse, the chorus and the bridge. about which hand/foot to use. This meant that timing had to be
- Reading drum music almost always involves recognizing shown vertically, and the music read top to bottom. The
the rhythm of the music and following along. When alternative, following the current sheet music convention of
doing so, the most challenging part is recognizing when reading left to right, would not allow this mapping from
the rhythm changes or newer patterns of drumming are instrument position to notation position. However, we recognized
added on top of the existing rhythm. It is helpful to have that this meant the notation could possibly be drawn on sheet
such points of change pointed out. music turned sideways.
In addition, we realized that the primary reason for the use After the vertical scrolling was settled on, we needed to
of traditional sheet music notation was that many drummers were figure out whether to read from top to bottom (which is natural
also musicians who could play other instruments and hence knew when reading) or from bottom to top (which would work better
how to read sheet music. However, we also found that most in a guitar hero-like auto-scrolling interface on a screen where
drummers never wrote down their music or never used any kind you can see the notes come down to the present). We settled on
of notation at all. the first option, as we prioritized being able to use it as a static
We also realized that we could specifically look at the design image on a screen or as a print.
affordances today’s technology allows us that were not possible Initial prototypes used icons to mark each hit of an
during the design of traditional sheet music: instrument and at the top of each column. This seemed to help
- Color in inking recognizability of actions. However, the option of adding dots
- Screens with pan and zoom, removing the limitation of instead of icons to show hits and have the icon only at the top has
having to fit on a piece of paper the advantage of being much easier to write down by hand, and
- Moving visuals, tracking the music as it plays should hence be allowed as a valid alternative. Users experienced
- Interactivity on a touchscreen with the notation should be able to read the music from position
- Connecting instruments for input alone.
- Generating sound from notated music Note duration/inter-beat interval – sheet music uses
note length to show inter-beat interval, though in a percussion
instrument the note length does not mean anything. We chose the
alternate option of keeping the icon constant and using only
vertical position to encode timing – this allows recognizability of
an unmodified icon, and allows easy reading of timing from top to viewer to map the horizontal position of the symbol with the
bottom. drum part. At the top of each section there is the name and the
The icons were designed with the following goals: color of the section, plus a mini legend to remind the user of the
- to be easy to distinguish from each other position and icon of each drum part on the score. The mapping of
- to be easy to draw by hand icon to drum part is available in the previous figure.
- to be visually correlated to the form of the instrument
and the action being taken 3.1.2 Song Progress bar (Timeline)
- to be small enough to fit in the scale, big enough to be This part of the visualization shows the order in which the
clearly seen sections have to be played in the song. As drumming is
We named this schema the Positional Drum Notation, because the characterized by patterns which are often repeated, the song
position of the drums matching a drum set is a core feature of this progress bar enables to specify the notes of each section only once
notation system. and then tell the user where to play that section, which most
probably will appear multiple times in the song. The sections are
3 R ES U LTS color coded to enable a quicker link between the side bar and the
section content in the body of the visualization.
We imagined our notation to have to possible outputs, either
static (visualizable either as a hard copy printed on a sheet of
paper or on a screen) or an interactive software usable to read and
write the notation.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of our design
decisions, we performed some user tests using the static notation
to gauge whether it was quicker for beginner drummers to learn
a groove by reading positional notation compared to traditional
notation .

3.1 Static Visualization

To prototype our design we transcribed the drum parts of the
musical song “Starlight” by rock band Muse. Please refer to figure
10 in the appendix.
The header of the sheet music is the same as of
traditional sheet music, showing the title, the artist and the beats Figure 5: Instructions on how to read the progress bar
per minute. On the left is the song progress bar, and on the right
are all the sections. 3.1.3 Sections
3.1.1 Icons Each section represents a sequence of notes to be played. Each
horizontal line represents a beat and the section progresses from
top to bottom. Notes that appear at the same height have to be
played together. Thicker lines represent the start of a bar. Notes
that appear in the middle of lines do not fall on the downbeat.
They could either be quarters or sixteenth notes. In order to
distinguish between the two we have added thin lines behind the
sixteenth notes, whereas eighth notes are positioned exactly
between two lines.
We want our notation to be as compact as possible in
order to minimize page turning which is always a cause of disturb
for a musician. This is why we have inserted a “repeat previous
bar” symbol, so that we will not repeat writing down bars which
are the same.

Figure 4: Mapping of icon to drum part

Icons indicate which drum part has to be hit. Each icon in the
section is aligned underneath its legend position, to enable the
 - Move notes in sections by dragging instead of deleting
and adding them
- Deleting sections
- Adding bars to sections by duplicating existing bars
- Duplicating existing sections in order to modify them to
create new sections
- Rearranging the order of instruments in the scale by
dragging so users can map it to their own drum set
- Allowing users to mark certain bars or beats as “change
in pattern”, so they can be shown larger or in higher
contrast
- Adding export/import of midi files or from sheet music
formats like MusicXML.
We plan to open source the code so we can add features or have
other interested developers take it from here.

3.3 User Testing

In order to validate our notation system, we set up a user
Figure 6: Timing and spacing in the sections
experiment. The objective is to verify if our notation improves the
3.2 Interactive Writing Software speed at which a use learns to play a specified drum song more
than the current standard notation.
A web interface to create, edit, print and export sheet music using
the Positional Drum Notation was implemented in 3.3.1 Experiment Design
html/css/javascript. The d3.js library (8) is used to visualize
music data. This prototype interface is live at
http://stanford.edu/~mishel/CS448B/.
The code saves the music in a javascript array
(sectionList) which lists each section of music that is shown on a
timeline (‘Song Progress bar’), and expanded separately to show
the groove. Each section object contains the name and length of
the section, along with an array of instruments with beat timings
for each. This object can be exported as a string and saved to file,
as well as read from a json string to load previously saved music.
The page displays the timeline of sections at the top of
the visualization, with the sections and the score for each section
being shown underneath the timeline.
The interactions implemented are:
- Use the form at the top of the webpage to import/export
music and to clear the music.
- A section can be added after its name and its length (in
beats) is submitted. If the name is unique, it is shown
both in the timeline and in the list of expanded sections. Figure 7: One moment of the user testing
If it a repeated section, it is only shown in the timeline.
- A click on an instrument column adds a beat, snapped to We gathered 8 subjects who did not have any prior drumming
the nearest time (right nor rounded to the nearest experience. We divided them into two groups: those who already
quarter note). The beat is added to the column with the knew how to play an instrument (not drums) and read music, and
icon for the corresponding instrument. those who had never had any prior music playing experiences.
- Clicking again on a note will cycle through other actions For each individual, we taught a quick overview of the
for the same instrument. For instance, clicking on the Hi drumset, explained one type of notation, then showed 3 different
Hat column initially adds a closed high hat hit, as it is the grooves (increasing in difficulty) and recorded how many times
most common. When clicked on again, it turns to an open the test subject had to start playing the groove before playing it
Hi Hat hit, and then a Hi Hat foot strike. correctly. Finally, each user was interviewed to gather feedback
- Right-clicking on a note removes it on the experiences with both notations.
- When a note is placed at a quarter note after or before a From each group, we taught half the people how to read
beat line, a horizontal strike is placed beneath it so it is positional notation, conducted the test, then taught them how to
easily distinguishable from notes that are a half note read standard notation and conducted the test for the standard
after a beat line. notation.
The grooves used were the same for both notations and
We also have a long list of features that we would like to are depicted in the appendix. S is one of the most basic and
implement in the future: widespread drum grooves. B1 represents the first groove of the
- Increase line thickness in the existing icon set so it is bridge of “Starlight”, a song by rock music group “Muse”. I1
more noticeable against the background represents the first groove of the intro, and is not very common as
- Pre-load icons so imported music loads faster it requires to use both legs and both arms to be played.
- Rearranging sections in the timeline by dragging
3.3.2 Quantitative Results of Testing

Figure 9: Facebook comments to post explaining positional notation

on “Drummers” group

Figure 8: results of the experimentation. On the y axis is the average

number of repetitions that the users had to go through before
playing the groove correctly. The users are divided in 2 groups, each 4 D I SC USS I ON
of which has results for positional notation and traditional notation Positional drum notation provides a new framework for
on 3 grooves of increasing difficulty beginners to read drum music without having to know traditional
The results seem to prove that positional notation provides a notation.
quicker learning experience for user who had no prior experience Positional notation has succeeded in making it easier for
and for more difficult grooves. For people who had no prior beginners to read drum music, especially for non-trivial grooves.
experience, positional notation was better for grooves B1 and I1, We have observed reduced learning times for users who had
especially for the latter. For users with experience, positional never had previous musical experience. We have also succeeded
notation was better only for groove I1. in implementing a simple online interface to write and save
Positional notation caused a much quicker learning positional drum music. The functions are basic but enable
curve for both groups on groove I1. The groove had to be played positional drum music to be open for use and shareable from now,
on average 5 times less compared to the standard notation. We have partially succeeded in providing a better
reading experience to current musicians who have no prior
3.3.3 Qualitative results of Testing drumming experience. Positional notation is easier to read, but
Each user was interviewed after the test in order to gain more only for complicated grooves. This may not be enough to motivate
insight about how people process the visualization. current drummers to transfer from the traditional notation to
The symbols for the cymbals were appreciated, as they positional notation.
were perceived to depict the sound produced. Users reported that We have still to work on the icon selection, as they did
icons, instead of black notes, were easier to learn at the start, but not seem distinguishable enough and could potentially increase
that once the groove was mainly learnt, dots (traditional notation) the readability of the notation. There are also a lot of features left
were easier to follow. The icon chosen for the snare drum was to add to the notation writing software in order to make it
confusing at first but became clearer once it was showed that the comparable to software used to currently write traditional
snare has a string rattler underneath it. notation.
Some users reported difficulty in differentiating
between the bass drum icon and the snare one. The depiction of 5 F U TU RE W OR K
the toms as numbers also was confusing. One of the users who
knew music reported that it was much easier to read the 5.1 Design
traditional music, as it was easy for her to map the drum parts to Qualitative user feedback has expressed concerns about some of
a specific note. the icons. It will be necessary to diversify the snare and bass drum
icon, as some users confused them. It will then be necessary to
find another way to distinguish between tom notation, as the
3.3.4 Community Feedback
numbers require the readers to process writing, which we would
We posted an explanation of our static notation along with the like to prevent.
starlight example on a drummer community on Facebook with In general, we plan on reviewing the thickness of the
around 35,000 members asking for feedback. Two users grid lines and shape borders in order to optimize the contrast. We
suggested to move the song progress bar to the left, which we did, will also change the color selection in order to take into account
in order to improve the followability of the song. In this way, you printability and color-blindness.
can see which groove to play and move the sight to the tab of that
groove. 5.2 Software
The same feedback suggested that positional notation There are many features that could be added to the online writing
would be much more effective if learnt during initial stages, / visualization software. The main ones that we have identified
something that our experiment confirmed. and to which we will give priority are:
- Copying and pasting of notation
 - Deletion of sections 4. Bailey, Eric. How do I read drum music. Quora. [Online] Jun 16,
- Exportation of midi files in order to enable the media 2016. [Cited: December 11, 2016.]
playing of the written music https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-read-drum-sheet-music.
These would make the software comparable to other music 5. Foresman, Chris. Rock out on your iPhone later this month
writing software available. The next steps would be to leverage with Roc Band. arsTechnica. [Online] October 9, 2009. [Cited:
the characteristics of positional notation to make a better December 11, 2016.]
interactive experience for the user (automated scrolling for http://arstechnica.com/apple/2009/10/rock-out-on-your-
example) iphone-later-this-month-with-rock-band/.
6. Wikipedia. Klavarskribo. Wikipedia. [Online] Wikimedia
6 R E FE RE NC ES Foundation, April 26, 2016. [Cited: December 11, 2016.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavarskribo.
1. Weinberg, Norman. Guidelines for Drumset Notation.
7. Rogers, George L. Effect of Color-Coded Notation on Music
Percussive Notes. June 1994, pp. 15 - 26.
Achievement of Elementary Instrumental Students. Journal of
2. AudioGraffiti. Guide to Drum & Percussion Notation. [Online]
Research in Music Education. 39, 1991, Vol. 1.
August 2004. [Cited: December 6, 2016.]
8. D3.js - Data-Driven Documents. [Online] [Cited: December
http://web.mit.edu/merolish/Public/drums.pdf.
10, 2016.] https://d3js.org/.
3. Bent, Ian. Musical Notation -Encyclopedia Britannica. [Online]
June 17, 2007. [Cited: December 12, 2016.]
https://www.britannica.com/art/musical-notation.
7 A PP EN DI X

7.1 Example of Positional Drum Score

7.1.1 Positional Drum Transcription

Figure 10: Starlight positional drum music transcription

7.1.2 Legend for Positional Drum Music

Figure 11” Instructions for Positional Drum Music Interpretation

7.1.3 Traditional Music Transcription

Figure 12: Starlight traditional music transcription