How to Master a Beatbox Rhythm: 3 Tips for Students
Do you find beatboxing rhythms difficult to master? This can be frustrating, but don't worry, you're not alone. Many people find it difficult to learn new rhythms. However, with a little patience and practice, you can master any rhythm. In this blog post, we will discuss three tips that will help you learn and master beatbox rhythms!
Remain patient:
Learning a new skill takes time and patience. Getting frustrated will not help you learn the rhythm any faster. If you find yourself getting frustrated, take a break and come back to it later. Remember that when learning how to Beatbox you are often using your voice in a way that you are not used to. To create many of the sounds you are required to put a lot of pressure on the throat and the lips and it can take time before you build the necessary amount of strength to produce the sounds properly. Practice regularly but remember to be patient, don't allow yourself to get frustrated and definitely take a break if your voice, throat or lips feel tired of sore. Remember that although you will master many new beatbox rhythms on day 1.. some can take weeks or even months.
Split the rhythm up into smaller sections:
When you're first learning a new rhythm, it can be helpful to split it up into smaller sections. Master one section at a time, and then piece the sections together to perform the whole rhythm. This will help you build confidence and avoid feeling overwhelmed by the entire rhythm. We know the feeling of wanting to be able to be able to master something that we are learning and learning to beatbox is no exception. But like most skills we learn, there it's no magic button that we can press to learn the skill. I wish I could plug myself into the matrix and be a Kung Fu master, a dreamy idea but it doesn't work like that. One simple method we teach in our online beatbox course is to split a Beatbox rhythm into smaller sections. Splitting a beat into 2 sections is usually enough but you can split it into three, four or more if you need to. This method allows you to focus on a small section of a Beatbox rhythm and not feel overwhelmed by the whole rhythm. Once you've learned one section of the beat, move onto the next section and eventually you can try piecing the second together. We teach rhythms to our students this way and it works amazingly well.
Slow it down:
When you're first learning a new rhythm, it can be helpful to slow it down. This will make it easier to hear each individual sound and see how the rhythm is constructed. Once you have the hang of it, you can gradually increase the speed. This is a great tip for any skill that you're trying to learn, not just beatboxing rhythms. Mastering anything takes time and if we can slow down the process, we can better understand what's going on and assimilate the information more easily. When we're learning something new, our brains are trying to make sense of a lot of new information and this can be overwhelming. Slowing down the process allows us to focus on one thing at a time. Once you have a good understanding of the concept, you can gradually increase the speed and before you know if - you've got it!
Bonus tip: The power of repetition
Each time we produce sounds in a particular pattern, our brain is sending signals to the parts of our mouth, tongue, throat etc in order to make those sounds. The brain is learning this new pattern as you make the sounds. If we repeat the pattern the brain starts to remember the familiar pattern. If we keep on repeating the pattern.. well you can see where this is going. The brain starts to create a muscle memory for that particular pattern and it becomes easier and easier to make those sounds without having to think about it. This is why repetition is so important when learning new Beatbox rhythms. It's also important to note that when you first start repeating a pattern, it might not sound great. This is normal! The more you repeat it, the better you'll get at producing those sounds and the more confident you'll feel. So don't give up, keep repeating those rhythms until you've got them down!
Conclusion:
Mastering a beatbox rhythm can be difficult but by following these three tips, students can be on their way to becoming beatboxing masters in no time. At School of Beatbox we have packaged all the beatbox lessons you need into a complete online course. Learn all the basic sounds plus advanced sound effects like the Liproll. Learn breathing techniques and loads of awesome rhythms.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post and found it helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below or get in touch with us here. Until next time! Master those beatbox rhythms! 🙂
What other tips do you find help you to master beatbox rhythms? Let us know in the comments below!
