Practical Beatboxing

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Practical Beatboxing
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Its easy to start

• Repeat the following words and then loop them.
• Boots n cats n

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Building a basic drum kit
Cymbal
Tom-tom
Bass
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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)

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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!

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Building a simple percussive piece
C - - X -
T - X - X
B X - - -
Try this as a whole class and loop it to the beat
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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.
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Beatboxing notation

• Beatboxing notation can be entered in to an
  adapted form of guitar tab
• S I - - - - I K - - - I - - - - I K - - - I
• H I - - T - I - - T - I - - T - I - - T - I
• B IB - - - I - - - - I B - - - I - - - - I

Snare sounds
Hi-hat sounds
Bass drums
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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 - - - - I
• H I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I
• B I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I - - - - I
• Loop your 8 beat rhythm to the beat.

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Beatboxing notation to try

• Bass drum sounds
• B Heavy bass drum
• b Soft bass drum
• U Techno bass drum

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• Hi-hat sounds
• T Ts a short, sharp sound
• S Tssssss an open cymbal sound
• t a closed hi-hat sound
• tk sound both letters, spaced evenly and
  repeating to make a continuous hi-hat rhythm

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• Snare sounds
• K a rim-shot snare sound
• C add air, as in cup, for a basic snare sound
• P Pf or psh, a more open snare sound
• G a techno snare sound

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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

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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.

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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