Beatboxing is a vocal percussion technique. The term is sometimes limited to a specific style of vocal percussion associated with the hip hop musical genre, but it is also used more broadly. It is clear that it does not apply to vocal percussion traditions from countries other than the United States.
Depending on which definition one uses, beatboxing can also include body percussion and vocal percussion. Human Beatbox, on the other hand, defines beatboxing as “the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds with one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, nasal passage, and throat using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, nasal passage, and throat.”
Beatboxing’s content revolves around a set of sounds that imitate specific drumset sounds. The kick drum, the drumset’s bass drum; the snare drum, a freestanding drum that can be played with or without snares; and the closed hi-hat cymbal, which can be played with the foot pedal or tapped with a stick or brush, are considered the three core sounds.
Each instrument has one or more vocalizations associated with it. The kick drum is denoted the letter /b/. The closed and open hi hats are /t/ and /ts/, respectively, and the snare drum is /pf/, /psh/, or /ps/. A basic drumset groove can be imitated combining these sounds in patterns and repeating the patterns consistently.
The art of beatboxing, however, does not end there. Other sounds like drum machine snares, cymbal crashes, reverse cymbals, sweeping bass drums, techno bass, jazz brushes, rimshots, and click rolls can be added. Advanced beatboxing combines beatboxing with humming or singing.
Mastering when to breathe is another important aspect of becoming a beatboxer. This is not the same as conversing or singing. Breathing has to be carefully planned when there are so many explosive sounds pushing air out. If you choose to use a microphone, you must also know how to hold it properly. Different grips and, in some cases, two microphones are used to create various sounds.
Beatboxing is a skill that requires a lot of practice and hard work. This is true whether one is beatboxing a well-known song or making something up from scratch. The ability to improvise comes after the elements have been thoroughly integrated into the beatboxer’s repertoire.