A sting is a short drum sequence played by a

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western bands that play rock, pop, jazz, or R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeeping and embellishing the musical timbre. The drummer's ...

to punctuate a

joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

, especially an obvious one. A sting is often used as accompaniment during

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dinin ...

- and

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

-style shows. Sometimes the sound of the sting is written ''ba dum tsh'', ''ba-dum cha'', ''ba-dum ching'', ''ba dum tiss'' and occasionally ''ba dum tis''. In

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...

, ''boom boom'' is used, for example in "Ha ha ha! Boom! Boom!", the catchphrase of the children's television character,

Basil Brush Basil Brush is a fictional red fox, best known for his appearances on daytime British children's television. He is primarily portrayed by a glove puppet, but has also been depicted in animated cartoon shorts and comic strips. The character has f ...

. An abbreviation used in chats is //*. When a full orchestra flourish is to be indicated as a sting, it sometimes is written or spoken as, ''ta da!'' or ''ta da—'' as an interjection. In the context of

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, ''

rimshot A rimshot is a percussion technique used to produce an accented snare drum backbeat. The sound is produced by simultaneously hitting the rim and head of a drum with a drum stick. The sound and various techniques The sound of rimshots can be ...

'' normally refers to a single stroke of the stick in which the rim and head of a drum are both struck simultaneously by the same stick, creating an accent. A rimshot in this context is only a component of the sting, and does not appear at all in some stings. Sting a

Common stings may feature a short roll followed by a

crash Crash or CRASH may refer to: Common meanings * Collision, an impact between two or more objects * Crash (computing), a condition where a program ceases to respond * Cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating * Couch ...

or splash cymbal and

kick drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...

, a flam, or a rimshot. The notation shown here is an advanced example that uses a tom then kick, followed by a pause to put the final stroke offbeat, and a final stroke using both the snare and kick drums to support a one-handed cymbal choke, meaning all three are hit at once.

More general use of the term

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wi ...

, the term ''

sting Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-earth ...

'' refers to any short musical sequence used for punctuation, for example to introduce a commercial break during a television news program. Such stings commonly use a full orchestra rather than just percussion, and in

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

may be backed by a short video sequence.

References

External links

*
Of Stings and Rimshots
, ''The Sound and the Foley'' website explores the use and/or misuse of the term ''rimshot''. Percussion performance techniques Sound effects {{music-stub

More general use of the term

See also

References

External links