Charting a song for a sub drummer

A chart you write for yourself can be cryptic. A chart for a sub has to carry everything you know about the song that is not on the record. Here is what to put in it.

Start from the arrangement you actually play

Bands drift from the record: a shortened intro, a doubled last chorus, a stop that the singer added on tour. The sub will learn the record. The chart's job is the difference. Go section by section against the live arrangement, not the original, and write the bar counts you really play.

Cues are worth more than notes

A sub playing from a chart is listening for landmarks. Give them the landmarks:

• The lyric that starts each section: "Verse 2: she walks in".
• Who leads a change: "bridge starts on guitar riff", "watch the singer for the stop".
• What the fill sets up: "two-bar fill into the chorus, land the crash on 1".
• Any count that is not obvious: "the outro vamp is 5 times, then the hit".

In Rhythm Writer the Notes column is for exactly this, and the Lyrics column holds the cue words next to the section they start.

Write the feel, not just the pattern

"Straight 8ths, laid back" and "16ths, pushing" are different songs with the same notes. Put a word about feel at the top of the chart and change it where it changes. Mark swing if there is any. A tempo in bpm beats "medium".

The three things subs get wrong

1. Section lengths. They play an 8-bar verse where you play 12. Write every count.
2. Endings. How the song stops is rarely on the record the way you do it live. Write the last two bars out in full.
3. Dynamics. A sub who has never heard the band play will play everything at one level. Mark the quiet sections and the big one.

Send it in a form they can use

A photo of a napkin does not count. Send a PDF they can print and load into their reader, or the chart file itself if they use the same app. Rhythm Writer prints a letter-size page and exports the song as a file, and the free version opens any chart, so a sub does not need to buy anything to read what you send.

Checklist before you send

• Title, artist, tempo, feel at the top
• Every section with its bar count, in the order you play it
• A groove for each section, written once
• Cue lyrics or riffs at section starts
• Crashes, stops, fills and feel changes marked
• The ending written out
• Dynamics marked where they change
• One page, big type