Fool in the Rain Shuffle drum pattern
John Bonham's heavy half-time shuffle with all four kick placements, the opening hat bark, sparse ghosts and a bar-two snare variation. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 130 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the Fool in the Rain Shuffle
Count it as: 1 trip let 2 trip let 3 trip let 4 trip let · two bars. The pattern is a 2-bar phrase in 4/4 (two-bar half-time shuffle).
The Fool in the Rain Shuffle pattern, hit by hit
Each character is one step of the grid and each group is one beat. X is an accented hit, x a normal hit, o a quiet or ghost note and - a rest.
| Voice | Bar 1 | Bar 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Kick | X-X --X --- --X | X-X --X --- --X |
| Snare | --- --- X-- --- | --- --- X-- X-- |
| Ghost snare | -o- -o- --- -o- | -o- -o- --- -o- |
| Closed hat | x-- x-x X-o x-x | x-- x-x X-o x-x |
| Open hat | --x --- --- --- | --x --- --- --- |
| Pedal hat | --- o-- --- --- | --- o-- --- --- |
Tempo and feel
Heavy and relaxed. The kick before beat 3 must lead into—not land on—the late, full backbeat. The default tempo is 130 BPM. It plays with 67% swing by default; move the Swing control toward 50% to hear it straight. Slow it down until every hit is controlled, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
How to practise the Fool in the Rain Shuffle
Loop kick and hats before adding snare. Make the open hat close cleanly on beat 2. Place the beat 3 backbeat slightly behind the cymbal pulse.
Variations to try next
Omit the bar-two extra snare. Move the lead hand to ride. Practice the pre-backbeat kick alone.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Led Zeppelin - Fool in the Rain and Bernard Purdie - half-time shuffle vocabulary. Verse practice edition at the recording's quarter-note pulse, with the kick immediately before the backbeat, the first open-hat pickup and Bonham's occasional beat 4 snare added in bar two.