Similar to tablature, drum notation is an alternate to standard staff notation. Also like tablature, it has been made for a specific instrument. In this case, it is the drums. The staff is the same as normal staff notation, with five horizontal lines. The cymbals are notated as crosses as the note heads, and the drums are notated with round coloured in note heads. 

To make is easier to read, if there is a drum beat that repeats for many bars, a % sign is put in the bar, which means you play the last notated bar. Sometimes fills are not notated, and are simply written as 'Fill'.

Some notes can be notated in many different ways. For example, as well as a circle on the note head, an open Hi-Hat can also be notated as a 'o', and afterwards it can be closed by a '+' sign.

On the right, is a picture of the standard, most common drum notation, on the different parts of the drum kit and below is the full range of drum notation. However, it is quite rare to use most of these notes.