I come from a deep background in music reading. I started on piano and trumpet; when I switched to drums, I played in orchestras and jazz bands where I’d read miles of charts. Reading is a very valuable skill. That being said, I hardly ever read music on gigs nowadays. I can’t even remember the last time an artist or a producer handed me a chart or anything like that.

Normally, when someone hires me to do a show or a session, he or she sends me CDs in the mail and highlights the songs to learn. More often, a person emails me the MP3 tracks from demos, album cuts, or live versions.

I’ll listen to everything, and then write my own charts of the arrangements with notes dictating tempo markings, the song lengths, dynamics, the spots where the drums enter and lay-out, any signature beats or drum fills that appear to be essential to the music, etc.

Next, I’ll internalize the songs by losing the charts and playing the tunes by memory. I like to get to the point where I feel as though I am functioning on auto-pilot. During this whole process, I am also morphing the songs to make them more of my own.