Sheet music for drums and percussion

Sheet music for drums and percussion includes method books, technique workbooks and song collections for drum kit, snare drum and mallet percussion. If you are starting out, choose a method book with lessons that build on each other; if you already play, you will find rhythm and hand-and-foot coordination workbooks as well as play-along books with band recordings. Alongside drum kit music, there is sheet music for xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, timpani, cajon and handpan. Publishers include Hal Leonard, Rock School, Alfred and Hudson Music, with Czech tuition books by Libor Kubánek and Josef Tuzar.

Which drum method book is right for a beginner?

A drum method book takes a beginner from holding the sticks and playing the first rhythms to performing complete pieces on the kit, lesson by lesson. In Czech, there is Škola hry na bicí soupravu by Libor Kubánek; English titles include Hal Leonard Drumset Method, FastTrack Drums and Absolute Beginners, which also has an edition for electronic drums. If you want to progress through exam grades, Rock School publishes Drums Grade 1 to 8 in a new 2024 edition; each grade has its own pieces and technical exercises.

When you teach yourself, the language of the explanations matters. Most titles are in English, with fewer in Czech, German and Slovak, although drum notation itself is the same everywhere.

How can you practise stick technique and reading rhythms?

Snare drum studies and workbooks help you develop stick technique and rhythm reading. Czech tuition books include Etudy pro malý buben by Josef Tuzar and Škola hry na malý buben by Libor Kubánek, alongside international titles Modern School for Snare Drum and Stick Control. Books on syncopation and hand-and-foot independence take these skills onto the kit, such as Progressive Steps to Syncopation, Bass Drum Control, The New Breed and The Language of Drumming by Benny Greb. You do not read a workbook like this from cover to cover: you return to an exercise until you can play it cleanly and in time. If note values and time signatures give you trouble, the books in the Music Education category can help.

How do you practise songs with a band recording?

Play-along books combine drum notation with a recording of the whole song. The Hal Leonard Drum Play-Along series has volumes organised by genre or band, such as Classic Rock, Funk, Easy Rock Songs and the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon. First you listen to the whole song, then you play along with the band yourself. Transcriptions of drum parts from well-known songs also appear in collections by Beatles, Queen, Nirvana, Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and in the First 50 Songs You Should Play on Drums books.

What sheet music is there for xylophone, marimba, timpani, cajon and handpan?

Xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel play melodies, so their notation shows pitch as well as rhythm. For these instruments, there are collections such as The Beatles for Marimba, Disney Songs for Xylophone and Jazz Classics for Vibraphone, plus Rubank methods for marimba, timpani and bell lyra. Czech books for beginning timpanists and orchestral percussionists are intended for children starting out in an orchestra. Cajon has its own method books, such as Cajon Method by Hal Leonard, while for handpan you will find Handpan The Complete Manual and the German Cascha method with QR codes. Sheet music for other instruments is in the Music Sheets and Tabs category.