Whole Note

There isn’t a whole lot to cover with the whole note. While most instruments hold these notes for the entire breadth of the measure, us drummers get off a bit easier. There isn’t much to hold when it comes to drum notes, cymbals perhaps, but those come in the form of rolls or just letting the cymbal ring out.

On the Musical Staff

This note appears on the musical staff as an open circle with no stem. It gets the entire count of a measure. So, in a standard 4/4 time signature, the note is played for all four beats. In 3/4 time it gets three beats and so on and so forth for other time signatures.

Learn more about time signatures.



These notes are not as common in written drum music as they are in notation for other instruments. When they are found in drum notation, they can appear either on the line as shown previously, or in the space between the lines as above.

Concert drum sheet music tends to have a lot of whole rests–measures where we don’t do anything except sit there while the rest of the band harmonizes or whatever they do.

A whole rest appears as a tiny box (see photo above) below a line. If the box appears above the line, it’s a half-rest.



Here is a short drum beat that features the note. In the first measure the bass drum gets a whole note. In the second, the snare drum gets it.

Like I mentioned earlier, you won’t see these very often in drum music. And in the example above, the first bass drum note would be written as a quarter note followed by rest notes; the same goes for the snare in the second measure. I just wanted to give you a quick example of the note on the musical staff.



Similar Drum Lessons:

Half Notes
Musical Staff
Note Values

Return To:
How To Read Drum Music