Why is the bass drum called a "Kick Drum"?

wraub

wraub

Gold Member
You don't kick it.

I could see calling it a foot drum, or a low drum, pedal drum, even "the big drum", but I don't understand kick drum. Even calling it a stomp drum would make more sense.

Things are weird.
 
I like to think it's because you use your foot in a (sorta) kicking motion. Thus...kick drum.
 
the actual history of that comes from NOLA, back in the days of the funeral march bands...


In a nutshell:
they would get done at the end of the day marching back from funerals, and then go to a local place to jam. Due to space, they could only fit one drummer in the different clubs, so they would put the marching bass on the ground, and usually the lead drummer in the band would wear their snare, and literally kick the bass drum with his foot.

I learned this at a Stanton Moore clinic when he was talking about first line and second line drumming/music, and the history of the Dixieland and Rag bands from NOLA
 
Reminds me of something mummy and daddy do when they really really love each other that has nothing, whatsoever, to do with 'blowing' at all - despite the ridiculous vulgar nomenculature.
 
You don't kick it but you kick the band with it. ;)

I suspect it's more of a sound engineer thing than a drummer thing and when we do say it it's because we've been hanging around too much with sound engineers. I actually don't have a problem with it. It's just musician lingo.
 
C. Dave Run said:
I need less **** in my mix. Love it.

I move to initiate the @Al Strange rule of calling the 4 string guitar ****.
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I have definitely called it that, but only because "the thing that helps keep the band from sounding like ****" just doesn't really work in most conversations, in my experience. ;) :D
 
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wraub said:
I have definitely called it that, but only because "the thing that helps keep the band from sounding like ****" just doesn't really work in most conversations, in my experience.
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Dudes, I need a hint what the word is. Yes I'm a moron.
 
wraub said:
I have definitely called it that, but only because "the thing that helps keep the band from sounding like ****" just doesn't really work in most conversations, in my experience. ;) :D
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Its only getting picked on because of the shared name. I bet in general we like the **** better than guit1 and guit2 and vox.
 
I'm sorry, with all due respect to Stanton (the amazing player that he is) I really a hope he's not teaching this in his clinics. The idea that a handful of street drummers in New Orleans using an obscure technique becoming music industry common terminology is suspect.

The technique referred to may indeed have been used going back a hundred years ago due to the local conditions cited but the term "kick" drum is a later twentieth century term coined by soundmen and engineers. In fact some of us who played drums in the 1970's and early 1980's worked with soundmen who called it a bass drum.
 
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Jeremy Bender said:
I'm sorry, with all due respect to Stanton (the amazing player that he is) I really a hope he's not teaching this in his clinics. The idea that a handful of street drummers in New Orleans using an obscure technique becoming music industry common terminology is suspect.

The technique referred to may indeed have been used going back a hundred years ago due to the local conditions cited but the term "kick" drum is a later twentieth century term coined by soundmen and engineers. In fact some of us who played drums in the 1970's and early 1980's worked with soundmen who called it a bass drum.
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I have heard that history from people other than Stanton as well...just going with what I heard...I did not do a ton of research into it myself b/c it was not that high on my list of things to worry about whe I heard the stories
 
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