The “I don’t know what this is called” thread

The Lounge
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There’s so many times I want to look for help for sound design or beat making but I have no idea how to define what I’m looking for.

I’m sure it’s down to a lack of musical vocabulary, but maybe this thread will help some other perplexed people.

I’ll start it off with this, I have no idea what this kind of percussive beat is called, in my head I call it a “running man” beat, but it hasn’t been so helpful in terms of results obviously:

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I doubt this beat has its own name. It’s just some straight rhythm played on snare drum’s side (and pedal played hi-hat on background if I’m not mistaken).

You can find example of how it’s played in the beginning of this video.

By the way, I don’t know how this style of drumming is called but I like it.

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Syncopated rhythm is I believe the proper name. I’m not a drummer though.

The original example is also using a bunch of ghost notes to make the accents more dynamic despite being sorta low key.

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No idea what that music is, ‘ambient techno’ or something equally unsatisfactory? But I love the cover art, and it’s apparently a real building in Berlin called the ‘Maüsebunker’. Thank god it’s from the pre-AI days and hurrah for reverse image search.

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It’s quite distinctive, 6 sixteenths in a row with an extra ghost note to lead in. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if some drummer had named it.

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My opinion piece for the day:

Why not call it the running man beat?

IME drum beats are named for regions, people, or countries, and they’re only real important when you’re trying to convey a musical idea to someone with words.
Even then, if you don’t speak the same language or have overlapping musical taste, names for them are almost useless until you want to recall shared experience (this is why notation exists, innit?)

I have heard this beat referred to as “The Manchester”:

But should’nt it be called Scoggins because of this?

Anyway, what’s in a name? I’m willing to bet that no one referred to it as “the Amen break” when it 1st happened.

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Does make me think of Angel.

My lifetime favorite “named” drum pattern models are the “train” beat (great shit-kicker energy vibes) and motorik, beloved in postpunk / Krautrock.

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I thought that came from the blues, but apparently it’s country in origin.

Yea … Bun E. Carlos here:

EDIT: Actually, not 100% sure that’s a train beat, but it shares the same cracking backbeat from the snare.

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Which is a fun (for me) sort of musical archaeology and ethnography, sites chatting surface level and occasionally questionable “differences” between country and blues (nonscholars suggesting the stark divide of Blues being the African-American experience and Country reflecting… “white european heritage”.)

Unsurprising that country also evolved out of the Blues.

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