And why was the left hand on the top line?
Have you ever looked at 18th and early-19th century drum manuals, like Charles Ashworth’s A New, Useful and Complete System of Drum Beating, and wondered about the drum notation?
In many of these older manuals, notes above the staff indicate a left-hand stroke and notes below the staff indicate a right-hand stroke.
This is probably especially confusing for modern drummers who are used to an up-down notation style where notes above the staff indicate the right hand!
Let’s take a look at a brief history of drum notation and find out why this older style of notation made perfect sense to contemporary drummers.
Pre-18th Century Drum Music
Some of the earliest surviving drum music uses regular notes with onomatopoeic terms below the staff to indicate sticking.
Surviving records show that the Swiss, French, and Italians were using the term ‘pa’ to mean a right stroke and ‘ta’ to mean a left stroke.
The English slightly corrupted this into the terms ‘pou’ for right and ‘tou’ for left, as seen in the English March Warrant.
We see this style continuing into the early 18th century. Some of the earliest surviving Swiss ordonnance used only onomatopoeia to verbally explain the beatings.
Up-Down Drum Notation
The first surviving example of the up-down drum notation appears in the French 1754 Ordonnance. Here, the top line indicates a left stroke and the bottom line indicates a right stroke. We still see the onomatopoeia written beneath, perhaps to aid those still more comfortable with that style.
This same style appears later in British sources. The manuscript Drum Beatings (c. 1780) and the published manual The Young Drummer’s Assistant (c. 1780) both use the up-down system as seen in the French ordonnance, but without any onomatopoeia.
Late-18th century American manuscripts also use the up-down notation style, which suggests that the British were using the system earlier than the 1780s and transmitted this tradition to the American colonists by at least the 1750s during the French and Indian War. We see this in Benjamin Clark, Issac Day, and the Gardner MS.
Later American-published manuals also use the up-down notation, such as Ashworth’s A New, Useful and Complete System of Drum Beating (1812); Robbins’ The Drum and Fife Instructor (1812); Rumrille & Holton’s The Drummer’s Instructor (1817); Robinson’s Martial Music (1818); Levi Lovering’s The Drummer’s Assistant (1819).
Alternative Up-Down Drum Notation
While most of them use an up-down notation style on the same staff, as seen in the French and British manuals, occasionally the Americans use two staffs. The left strokes are all on the top staff and the right strokes are all on the bottom staff.
Though this keeps the same rules of separating and indicating sticking, it can often be difficult to determine the order the sticking occurs in.
Samuel Potter’s The Art of Beating the Drum (1815) is unique for not writing its music in the up-down style. Instead, his music appears nearly modern with its use of time signatures, bar lines, rests, etc.
Potter is still influenced by this older style. To indicate sticking, he uses marks above the note for a left stroke and below the note for a right stroke.
Why Is The Left Hand Above The Staff?
Take a look at this image of a British drummer from the mid-18th century.
Notice how he carries his drum slanted at the correct angle.
See more about neck slings and wearing the drum.
Pay close attention to how he holds his arms in the proper position.
See more about the authentic right-hand grip and striking the drum.
Now take a look at these French drummers from the early-18th century. Pay particular attention to the one in the center wearing his drum.
Notice how high he carries his drum, almost in his left armpit. Because of how he’s carrying the drum, look at how his impacts his arm position.
Using the correct, authentic arm position, we clearly see that the left hand is literally “above” the drum and the right hand is literally “below” the drum.
When trying to articulate sticking into notation, it makes perfect sense to imitate the body’s actual position.
Want to learn more about holding the drum and authentic arm position? Check out:
