YYZ Drum Transcription

The YYZ drum transcription is the chart most drummers put off until they’re ready and then discover they weren’t quite as ready as they thought.

That’s not a discouragement. It’s just an honest description of what this song is. YYZ is an instrumental written by three musicians who were in complete technical command of their instruments and had no intention of simplifying anything for the sake of accessibility.

Neil Peart wrote his drum part the same way he wrote everything: with maximum intention and zero compromise.

The song opens with the most famous drum intro in progressive rock. The iconic riff that announces YYZ is built in 5/4, and it’s encoding something specific. “YYZ” is the IATA code for Toronto Pearson International Airport, the airport Rush flew in and out of for years on tour.

The long-short-short rhythmic pattern of the intro is Morse code for Y-Y-Z. Peart took that rhythm, handed it to Geddy Lee as a bass riff, and built the opening around it. That’s the level of detail this band operated at.

Understanding the 5/4 time signature before you try to read this chart is essential. Most drummers have been playing in 4/4 their entire lives, and the instinct to resolve to a fourth beat when only three have passed is deeply ingrained.

The key to feeling 5/4 comfortably is to stop counting individual beats and start hearing the phrase shape, the specific feeling of five landing and cycling back to one. It takes time to internalize.

Our drum notation guide will help you follow what’s happening on the page while your body catches up to what’s happening in your ears.

The main groove that drives the body of the song sits on a ride bell pattern with a fast, syncopated bass drum part underneath and the snare landing on 2 and 4, lightly decorated with ghost notes.

Peart used this same device in La Villa Strangiato and several other Rush instrumentals. It’s one of his signature sounds and it’s more demanding than it sounds in the recording because the ride bell, bass drum syncopation, and ghost notes are all operating independently while the snare holds the pulse together.

Getting each of those four things under control separately before combining them is the practical approach.

The fills are where the chart separates intermediate players from advanced ones. Multiple subdivisions run simultaneously across the fills, 16th-note triplets landing against 8th-note figures, quick tom runs that shift rhythmic emphasis mid-fill before landing back on the downbeat. None of this is improvised.

Peart’s fills in YYZ are completely composed and locked in identically every night. That compositional precision is what makes them so difficult and so satisfying to get right.

YYZ was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1982. It’s one of the few drum parts in rock that has been seriously analyzed in music academia.

Rush’s own documentation of the song and the Moving Pictures recording sessions is available through their official archive at rush.com, which is worth visiting if you want deeper context on how the band conceived these arrangements.

For gear, this chart will expose your kick drum’s response speed more than almost any other rock transcription. If you’re working on developing your double bass technique alongside this chart, our guide to the best double bass pedals covers what to look for when your playing demands start outpacing your hardware.

And if you’re practicing on an electronic kit, our best electronic drum sets guide covers which modules track fast playing accurately enough to give you reliable feedback on what your feet are actually doing.

The natural companion to this chart is the Tom Sawyer drum transcription. Both songs live on Moving Pictures, both are advanced-level charts, and working through them together gives you a complete picture of what Peart was doing at the peak of his powers in 1981.

Tom Sawyer teaches you to sustain a complex groove over a full song. YYZ teaches you to navigate structured composition across changing meters. Together, they cover the two skills that define his playing better than any other pair of charts in the library.

This chart lives in our free drum transcriptions library alongside 160+ others.

Difficulty: Advanced
Tempo: ~108 BPM
Time Signature: Primarily 5/4 with passages in 4/4
Key Technique: 5/4 time signature internalization, Morse code rhythmic intro, ride bell groove with simultaneous ghost notes and bass drum syncopation, composed multi-subdivision fills, limb independence across changing meters.