bass drum
noun
plural bass drums
: a large drum that has two heads and produces a booming sound of low indefinite pitch
[The Beatles'] 18-year-old engineer Geoff Emerick transformed their sound by stuffing a sweater in Ringo's bass drum.—
Rob Sheffield
Rob SheffieldThunderous bass drums and tom-toms predominate, delivering an oscillating groove over which the composer's voice floats …—Tom Huizenga
see drum illustration
Tom HuizengaExamples of bass drum in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
But the two drummers did arrive equipped with complementary bass drum heads, each depicting Méliès-like faces of the sun and the moon.
—Chris Willman, Variety, 9 Apr. 2024
Built around a riff on the Powerpuff Girls theme and a bass drum like a hiccuping heartbeat, the song was co-written by Erika de Casier, who expertly guides the group towards a soft, sensitive take on drum’n’bass.
—Pitchfork, 12 Dec. 2023
The opening 30 seconds of the four-minute track pulse with chanting, the crackle of snares, the thump of bass drums and the thick roar of horns.
—Jonah Valdez, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2023
Related As always, Barker organizes the faces using the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover as the template, with this year’s model featuring Pogues singer Shane MacGowan front-and-center above the bass drum, flanked by Tina Turner and Sinead O’Connor.
—Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 12 Dec. 2023
At his signal, the strings went off on a pizzicato run, buoyed by harps and congas, before dissolving into a bass drum pulse beneath simmering horns.
—August Brown, Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2023
Sting: Joe would be at rehearsals in his carry cot, propping up the bass drum.
—Linda Laban, Variety, 3 Oct. 2023
John Adams, a fixture at most Cleveland Indians home games who first lugged a secondhand bass drum into the bleachers in the summer of 1973 and continued to rally fans by striking it emphatically for almost half a century, died on Monday in Cleveland.
—Richard Sandomir, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2023
Every hour our tour guide took a battered cardboard box from the front seat and paraded it down the aisle like a bass drum in a marching band, urging those dubious fruits upon us.
—Rita Dove, Bon Appétit, 8 Aug. 2023
Chris Willman, Variety, 9 Apr. 2024
Built around a riff on the Powerpuff Girls theme and a bass drum like a hiccuping heartbeat, the song was co-written by Erika de Casier, who expertly guides the group towards a soft, sensitive take on drum’n’bass.
—Pitchfork, 12 Dec. 2023
The opening 30 seconds of the four-minute track pulse with chanting, the crackle of snares, the thump of bass drums and the thick roar of horns.
—Jonah Valdez, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2023
Related As always, Barker organizes the faces using the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover as the template, with this year’s model featuring Pogues singer Shane MacGowan front-and-center above the bass drum, flanked by Tina Turner and Sinead O’Connor.
—Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 12 Dec. 2023
At his signal, the strings went off on a pizzicato run, buoyed by harps and congas, before dissolving into a bass drum pulse beneath simmering horns.
—August Brown, Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2023
Sting: Joe would be at rehearsals in his carry cot, propping up the bass drum.
—Linda Laban, Variety, 3 Oct. 2023
John Adams, a fixture at most Cleveland Indians home games who first lugged a secondhand bass drum into the bleachers in the summer of 1973 and continued to rally fans by striking it emphatically for almost half a century, died on Monday in Cleveland.
—Richard Sandomir, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2023
Every hour our tour guide took a battered cardboard box from the front seat and paraded it down the aisle like a bass drum in a marching band, urging those dubious fruits upon us.
—Rita Dove, Bon Appétit, 8 Aug. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bass drum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Bass drum.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bass%20drum. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
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