Day 18: Writing a Drum Beat
Wednesday, April 15th, 2026
Warmup: Edpuzzle Video
Watch the Edpuzzle video titled “Rock Steady Walkthrough”. In the video, Mr. Willingham transcribes the first few bars of the Rock Steady pattern from the printed packet into GarageBand, one drum at a time.
After the video, pull up your Rock Steady project from yesterday so you are ready to keep going.
Access Edpuzzle by logging into Clever.
Work Session: Part 1 Review
Together we will review how drum notation and the piano roll work. Keep your printed packet out so you can point at the notation while we look at the grid.
Video Demo
This video demonstrates a self-playing instrument that includes elements of various instruments. It is controlled by a roll of paper with holes punched in it.
The holes in the paper correspond to different sounds that the instrument can produce. As the paper rolls through the machine, the holes trigger the corresponding sounds, creating music.
GarageBand’s Piano Roll
There is no paper or hole punch needed in GarageBand, but the piano roll in GarageBand is similar to the original paper rolls used in self-playing instruments. The piano roll allows you to create music by placing notes on a grid, where the vertical axis represents pitch and the horizontal axis represents time.
How to add Notes
With a paper roll, you would punch holes in the paper to create music. In GarageBand, you can add notes by clicking on the piano roll grid while holding the command key.
You can resize a note by clicking on the corners of the note and dragging it to make it longer or shorter. You can also move a note up or down to change its pitch, or left and right to change its timing.
From Paper to Piano Roll
When you transcribe a pattern from your packet, work one drum at a time:
- Find the drum on the Drum Notation Key so you know which line or space of the staff it lives on.
- Look up the MIDI note for that drum on the MIDI Mappings page (for example, kick = C1, snare = D1, closed hi-hat = F#1).
- Go to that row in the piano roll and command-click once for every X in that drum’s row on the packet.
- Press spacebar and listen. If a hit is missing or in the wrong place, fix it before moving to the next drum.
Work Session: Part 2
Finish transcribing the Rock Steady pattern from your packet into GarageBand. Work one drum at a time — hi-hat first, then kick, then snare — and check each row against the packet before moving on.
If you finish early, start a new project in GarageBand and begin the Add Toms beat from the packet. The Add Toms pattern uses the Low Floor Tom (F1), Low-Mid Tom (B1), and Hi Mid Tom (C2) in addition to the kick, snare, and hi-hat.
Closing
Return Your Packet
The Drum Worksheet Packet is a class set. Leave it in class — we will use it again tomorrow.
Exit Ticket
Before you leave, be ready to answer:
- When you transcribe a drum pattern from paper into the piano roll, which row do you use for the snare? The kick? The closed hi-hat?
- What is one thing the piano roll lets you do that a paper piano roll cannot?
Tomorrow we will add fills and look at basic beat forms to give your beats more structure.
Standards
- MSMTC8.CR.1 — Generate musical ideas for various purposes and contexts (reading traditional drum notation and translating it into MIDI note placements in the piano roll).
- MSMTC8.CR.2 — Select and develop musical ideas for defined purposes and contexts (arranging kick, snare, hi-hat, and optional toms into a complete, playable beat).