3 Stages To Start Beatboxing
Hey, what's up? Danny from School of Beatbox here.
Listen, if you’re starting out beatboxing and are getting a little bit frustrated or maybe a bit lost as to what the right way to learn is you might be asking yourself this question? “Do I just go out and check out all of these tutorials and learn different sounds?”
The answer is, Absolutely yes!
You can learn loads about beatboxing that way but I can clearly identify for you three stages to start beatboxing.
Now before I get into these three stages, what we want to create is a kind of loop where we go from being inspired or excited about our beatboxing and then being able to deliver from that excitement and that inspiration.
Then we want the delivery of that beatboxing to feed back into that inspiration and excitement. This way we create a loop which will motivate us to get more into our beatboxing and just have a better learning experience.
So I've identified three stages that will help you come out of that frustrated feeling, feeling like you can't do this, feeling like this is too difficult or feeling like this is going to be too much of a long process.
So let's get into these three stages right now and, hopefully, get you started on the right path to learn this amazing artform.
Stage 1:
So stage one is learning the three fundamental sounds. We've got the bass drum, the hi-hat, and a snare drum. Now for most people the snare drum will be a K snare which is a simple sound to make.You might be one of those lucky people that learnt a pro-sounding snare drum just out of habit and as you were growing up you were making one of these cool snare drum sounds and if you are one of those people, great! You've already got a pro snare. That's awesome. For most people, though, it’s going to be a simple ‘K snare’.
So stage one is just learning those three sounds and at this stage you want each of those sounds to sound really individual. You want them each to have their own place (sound-wise).
So the bass drum, the key is in the name “bass.” You want it to be a low sound. The more you relax your lips the lower that sound is going to be. If you tighten your lips you get a higher tone. So think about relaxing your lips while delivering the ‘B’ sound with impact in order to create that low sound.
Now with the hi-hat you want the opposite. You want a high sound (bass drum: bass - ‘low’; hi-hat: hi - ‘high’). We want a high frequency. So now you'll notice with this sound that when you change the shape of your mouth you'll get different frequencies or higher tones and lower tones.
If you make your mouth like this, you get a lower sound.
And like this to get the higher frequency that we want.
And for the snare drum, you kind of want it around the middle frequency kind of in-between the bass drum and the hi-hat. So in that way you’ve got a fuller sound. You’ve got low, high and mid frequencies with our 3 fundamental sounds.
So we’ve got our bass drum, our hi-hat and our snare drum.
That’s stage one!
Stage 2:
Stage two is now getting those sounds and putting them into different beat patterns. Basic beat patterns to start with is great. Just get yourself used to moving from one sound to another and to another and back again and putting them together into different patterns. The more patterns and styles that we learn, the better we will develop our timing because each different style of music will have a different swing, a different vibe, a different pulse so learning all of these different rhythms is just going to help us.So the classic “Boots and Cats” is actually a great place to start because you've got all of those sounds and you've got them in a basic rhythm.
Boots and Cats is BTKT.
B = Bass Drum
T = Hi Hat
K = Snare Drum
Once you've got that down and you're really thinking about all of these sounds still sounding individual and in their own place then you can start trying out some different patterns and so on.
Stage 3:
The third phase is about learning a pro snare. This is the next phase and this is really going to help you develop that loop that I talked about towards the beginning of this article. So when you learn a pro snare it's literally going to elevate and improve all of your rhythms and your beatboxing skills overall.When you're in stage two and you're practicing all these different rhythms, say you've learnt ten different beats, you get to stage three then and you learn one pro snare.
This pro snare could be a ‘Pf Snare’, for example. At this stage you can now implement that Pf snare into all of those ten beats just by swapping that K snare for a Pf snare and you will instantly upgrade all of those ten rhythms.
You know, learning beatboxing is about learning a new skill. It's an artform and at the same time you want to inspire yourself while you are beatboxing. If you can get to a point where you listen to the beats that you create and you really get into it like you're dancing to your own music or you're vibing with that creation it is an incredible feeling and that will help you progress even further because the more you get into your own beats the more you're going to learn. That motivation and that loop I talked about at the beginning is definitely going to be in action and working for you.
These three stages are the key first three stages.
