Winds/strings have chord charts or scores in jazz and rock, and classical music uses scores for drums and percussion. How do jazz and rock drummers and percussionists chart their parts so that they play the same way each time a song is performed? I’m especially interested for prog rock, where the drum parts can be very detailed and intricate.
In: 5
Used to play in a rock/alt/prog band.
Our drummer never used charts, but instead we spent a lot of time in the writing/rehearsal stage nailing down the structure.
We’d lay out the broad strokes i.e Verse 16 bars, pre-chorus 4 bars, chorus etc etc and lock that down before getting into the nitty gritty stuff like matching drum fills to the scratch vocal track or synchronising runs with the bass guitar.
With enough rehearsal and practice a 7-min song with multiple meters and parts becomes second nature.
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