How to Make Melodies with a Beat Box

Beatboxing was developed out of necessity. It was created by those who couldn’t get the rhythm out of their heads and couldn’t find any other way to express it. Years of practice combined with the near endless sonic capabilities of the human voice turned beatboxing into an art form of dead-on imitation and listener amazement. One of the more advanced techniques in beatboxing is the seemingly magical act of singing along with the beat.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Practice basic beatboxing. You have to know how to crawl before you start walking on your hands. You can create your own simple beats and improvise more complicated sounds when you are ready.

2. Find a song you think you can tackle--the simpler the better. Don’t frustrate yourself at first by trying to sing along to a complicated beat.

3. Locate the basic parts of the beat. This would be the lower kick drum sound and the higher popping sound of the snare. The “ts” sound of the high hat is normally essential in regular beatboxing, but it has to be sacrificed for the melody in most places.

4. Stick the melody in between the kick and snare drum. It will help if you slow the rhythm down and see which syllables fall on the beats. You can choose to either jam the syllable in just after the beat or treat it like a sort of ghost syllable by not pronouncing it but pretending it’s there.

5. Practice. What makes this maneuver amazing isn’t that two things are happening at once, because that’s not what is happening at all. What makes it amazing is that the transition between elements is so smooth that it sounds like two things are happening at once. Just as a magician never really makes a quarter disappear, a beatboxer can’t do two things at once. Still, that doesn’t make it any less amazing.

Tips & Warnings

• Watch professional beatboxers managing multiple sounds. It will help you more to watch their lips and listen to where the beat and melody weave in and out.
• Hum the melody of the song before you advance to singing it.

Resources

• Professional beatboxing samples
• Beatboxing samples

[type3beats]

on 7/18/2009 Good info on beatboxing which is a treasured art. Thanks.