Click Roll
What is a click roll? Listen here.
Click roll in a beat. Listen here.
Explanation:
1. The
position of the tongue.
This
is very different with a lot of people but I fold my tongue inwards, not all the
way in but more like a little further than an 'L' shape. Make sure the tip of
your tongue is against the roof of the mouth, also known as the 'gum' of the
mouth (in this tutorial I refer to it as the gum of the mouth). Take a look at pic
1 to see what I just talked about. Now what I do is place the tip of
the tongue in the middle of the
gum of the mouth, see pic 2. I found out that placing my
tip there gave the best effect to my click rolls, meaning loudness. Some people
fold the side of the tongue though and dont really use the tip. I prefer using
the tip but you might want to try using the sides too to see what suits you
best. I'm not going into using the side of the tongue in this tutorial though.
2. Breathing.
You may wonder... breathing? Well, I have
seen people that say they cant get click rolls down and that may be because they
do not breath in in the right way so I am gonna go over this one a little. You
can not get click rolls by just breathin' in through your lungs, you have to
breath in through your mouth and yes, that may sound a lil' wierd to some people.
Thats because it isnt really breathing, it is more a movement of the tongue/mouth
that enables you to get a lil' air into it. How do you know your doing it right?
Try holding your breath and move your jaw up and down while having your lips in
the form of whistling, you may even get a lil sound out of it while doing that.
If I am right you'll feel a lil' air going in and out of your mouth. Note:
It is also possible without moving your jaw in any way but that was just an
example of testing it out. The advantage of this all is that you can breath
in and out while doing a click roll, or even better, hum beneath it which means
you can make hums,kicks,snares,rimshots,hi hats and clickrolls all in 1 beat(listen
to the 'Click roll in a beat example thats on top of this page). Ok that was the
basics of breathing in through your mouth, on to the next section.
3. Getting the
click roll down.
This will be the hardest part. I'm gonna talk a
lil' more about these pictures i have drawn first. Take a look at pic 3,
you'll see that the sides of the tongue are expanded a lil' so that it closes
off the airway by pressin' them against the 
teeth.
This is for making sure that the air that comes into the mouth goes into the
direction of the tip of the tongue. To be even more sure about that i put my
cheeks to the sides of my teeth too as you can see in the picture. Now take a
look at pic 4 on the right, there you can see that the air
cant go down in the mouth because it is sealed off by your tongue. The only way
it can go is by going to the tip cuz that the weakest part of the tongue. By
going there the tip of
the tongue will vibrate/rattle up and down real fast, giving the sound of a
click roll. If you put enough pressure on the tip of your tongue it will even
slap on your tongue it self. Ok now that I've gone over the pictures, try to do
some single clicks by combining everything I have just discussed. Make sure you
get those down good, after you have done those try to do multiple clicks/click
rolls.Iit may be hard in the beginning and you might even get nothing out of it
but make sure you practice it a lot. After some time you'll be able to do 2-4
clicks in a row really easy. When you got it down really good you'll be able to
fully do a click roll, lets say about 6-12 clicks. I can tell you this though,
for some people it may take weeks to get it down, for others months. Just make
sure you practice it everyday.
4. Help on
incorporating a click roll into a beat.
Got the click roll down and got problems with
putting them into a beat? Heres a lil' help to get you started. Even though
there isnt a real secret to getting them into a beat, it might be hard to do a
kick to clickroll to snare or other combinations like that in the beginning. All
I can say about that is that it takes practice but you might consider puttin'
your tongue already in its position before doing the click roll or while doing a
kick. This could affect your kick or snare in the beginning a lil' (it may sound
weaker), but that will pass. The more you practice the better you get at it.
Anyway, here are some small examples of basic beats with a click roll in it.
B = kick / /
Bff = snare / / C = single click / /
CR = click roll / / T = hi hat
B - CR - Bff - CR - (repeat)
listen
B - CR - C - Bff - CR - (repeat)
listen
B - CR - CR - Bff - CR - CR - (repeat)
listen
B - CR - Bff - T - T - B - Bff - CR - (repeat)
listen
There are so many variations of this but these
were a few to get you started on. If you can do these good and at a nice speed,
it will sound like you are doing it at the same time. Another thing that might
help is doing a single click after a clickroll or multiple single clicks.
5. Tips and
known issues.
- When trying to do click rolls, try putting a
lil' pressure on the tip of your tongue, let your jaw fall a little and move
your tongue a lil' inwards, this is for getting a louder effect and getting your
clicks to sound tight.
- With the same point as above, but a more
relaxed tongue you will get a simliar click roll style as Doggy E. Fresh uses.
- By forming your mouth in different ways, your
click rolls will sound different, for example if you form your mouth like your
whistling, your click rolls will sound more 'bass-like'.
- Try looking on the internet for audio/video
files involving click rolls and learn from them by listening.
- By using more pressure, your jaw may feel tired
after doing click rolls for a long period of time but by practicing it a lot
you'll get used to it.
- Some people use their tongue for doing kicks to
make them louder, this can be a lil' problem for incorporating click rolls into
a beat. The only advise i can give on
that is that you might want to consider not using the tongue or just practice
the change of the tongue position a lot so you get used to it.
- Be creative, find your own style and dont
forget to practice.