Practical Beatboxing

It’s easy to start……

Repeat the following words and then loop them….

Boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’

Building a basic drum kit…

BassBass

Tom-tomTom-tom

CymbalCymbal

Making the sounds…

B for bass drum: ‘Bu’ (as in ‘butter’)

T for tom-tom: ‘T’ (a soft t/d as in ‘lighten’)

C for cymbal: ‘S’ (as in ‘snake’)

Using basic percussion sounds…

Try the following sets of letters, using the basic sounds…

B T B T B T B T

C C C C C C C C

B T C T B T C T

Remember to keep to the beat!

Building a simple percussive piece…

C - - X -

T - X - X

B X - - -

Try this as a whole class and loop it to the beatTry this as a whole class and loop it to the beat

Introducing the eight-beat…

Traditionally beatboxing rhythms start with forming an ‘eight-beat’…

B T C T B T C T

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Using B T C, create your own eight-beat in pairs and loop to the beat.Using B T C, create your own eight-beat in pairs and loop to the beat.

Beatboxing notation…

Beatboxing notation can be entered in to an adapted form of guitar tab…

S I - - - - I K - - - I - - - - I K - - - IH I - - T - I - - T - I - - T - I - - T - IB IB - - - I - - - - I B - - - I - - - - I

Snare soundsSnare sounds

Hi-hat soundsHi-hat sounds

Bass drums Bass drums

Getting started with beatboxing…

Once you have mastered the three basic sounds and you have notated them, you can make your basic 8 beat.

Use the empty grid to create your 8 beat…

S I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - IH I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - IB I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I

Loop your 8 beat rhythm to the beat.

Beatboxing notation to try…

Bass drum sounds

B – Heavy bass drumb – Soft bass drumU – Techno bass drum

Hi-hat sounds

T – ‘Ts’: a short, sharp soundS – ‘Tssssss’: an open cymbal

soundt – a closed hi-hat soundtk – sound both letters, spaced

evenly and repeating to make a continuous hi-hat rhythm

Snare sounds

K – a rim-shot snare soundC – add air, as in ‘cup’, for a

basic snare soundP – ‘Pf’ or ‘psh’, a more open

snare soundG – a techno snare sound

Making your rhythm sound interesting…

Using a combination of the different sounds, create three sets of eight-beats and notate them.

Bear in mind that you can double sounds, creating quavers and making your eight-beats sound even more interesting…

BT –K P P BT BT P P TK TK TK BB and so on…

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Using a microphone…

Beatboxers use a microphone to help us hear their beats more clearly.

They cup their hands around the top of the microphone in different ways, the idea being that the maximum amount of sounds are collected by the microphone.

To practise your beatboxing without a microphone, you can cup your hands around your mouth to collect the maximum amount of sounds, until you are confident.

Extended technique

The snare roll

‘Bprrrr’ – similar to blowing into a trumpet; use the lips to create a horse-like noise or a cat purr

‘Kurrrr’ – roll the tongue on the roof of your mouth

‘Krrrrrr’ – as above, but bare your teeth in a grimace