Intermediate Beatbox TechniquesAfter mastering the three basic beatbox sounds, it's time to move onto these intermediate techniques. These might be a little more difficult, but practice makes perfect.
- Develop a good bass drum sound.
This is done by pressing your lips together and building up pressure with your tongue and jaw, pushing your tongue forward from the back of your mouth and closing your opened jaw at the same time. Let your lips part toward the side for just a moment so the air can escape, and it should make a bass drum sound. You want to add pressure with your lungs, but not so much that you have an airy sound afterward.
If you're not making enough bass sound, you need to relax your lips a bit. If your sound isn't making a bass drum sound at all, you need to tighten your lips, or make sure that you're doing it off to the side of your lips.
Another way to approach it is to say "puh." Then, take off the "uh" so that all you hear is the initial attack on the word, so that it comes out like a little puff. Try your hardest to not let any of the "uh" sound come out, and also try to not have any breathy sound or air noise with it.
Once you feel comfortable with that, you can slightly tighten your lips and force a larger amount of air through your lips to make a bigger sounding kick drum.
- Explore other ways to make a snare sound.
Bring your tongue to the back of your mouth and build up pressure with your tongue or lungs. Use your tongue if you're looking for speed, or use your lungs if you want to breathe in at the same time as you make the sound. Try saying "pff," making the "f's" stop just a millisecond or so after the "p." Lifting the corners of your mouth and holding your lips really tight when making the initial "p" will help it sound more realistic. You can also use the same technique to change the apparent pitch of the snare.
- Add a drum-machine snare sound to the mix.
First say "ish." Then, try saying "ish" without adding the "sh" at the end, again going only for the intial attack. Make it very staccato (short), and you should get a sort of grunt in the back of your throat. Push a little bit when you say it, so that it has a big, accented attack.
Once you're comfortable with that, add the "sh" on the end and you'll get a synth-like snare sound. You can also work on moving the grunt so that it feels like it's coming from the top of your throat, for a higher drum sound, or so that it feels more like it's coming out of the lower part of your throat, for a lower drum sound.
- Don't forget about the crash cymbal.
This is one of the easier sounds to make. Whisper (don't say) the syllable "chish." Then, do it again, but this time clench your teeth and take the vowel out, going from "ch" straight to "sh" without little or no transition, and you'll have a basic crash cymbal.
- Make room for the reversed cymbal.
Place the tip of your tongue so that it touches the place where your top teeth meet your palate. Keeping your lips about a half-inch apart, breath in forcefully through your mouth. Notice how the air blows past your teeth and tongue and makes a sort of small rushing sound. Then, breath in forcefully again, and this time close your lips as your breathing in; they should sort of feel like they're popping closed, without making a popping sound.
You would be surprised at the number of human beatboxers who pass out because they forget that their lungs need oxygen. You may want to start by incorporating your breath into the beat. Eventually you will gain a great deal of lung capacity throughout your practice. An intermediate technique is to breathe in during a tongue snare, since it requires the least amount of lung capacity. An expert will have slowly practiced breathing whilst beatboxing each sound independently (see previous step), thus separating their breathing from the beat, allowing several kinds of bass sounds, snare sounds, and even some hi-hat sounds to continue without pause. As an alternative to breathing exercises, there are many sounds that can be done breathing inwards such as variations on the snare and handclap sounds.
- Develop your inward sounds technique.
One thing that puzzles people is how beatboxers can beatbox for a long time without actually taking a breath. Well, the answer is to make a sound and breathe in at the same time! We call these inward sounds. What is more, as you'll discover, some of the best sounds are made like this.
- There are many ways of making inward sounds. Nearly every sound that can be made outward can be made inward - although it may take some practice to get it right.
- Hold the mic properly.
Microphone technique is very important for performing or if you just want to enhance the sound made by your mouth. And there are different ways of holding the microphone. Many beatboxers deliver poor performances because they hold the microphone incorrectly and thus they fail to maximize the power and clarity of the sounds they produce.
While you can just hold the mic as you would while singing, some beatboxers find that putting the mic between your ring and middle fingers and then gripping it with your first two fingers on top of the bulb and your thumb at the bottom results in a cleaner, more crisp sound. Try not to breathe into the mic while you beatbox.