Beatboxing is a vocal activity, or a type of vocal percussion. Beatboxing is connected to the hip hop culture and it uses the mouth, tongue, lips and other things of the mouth to mimic drum beats, rhythm and other musical sounds. Beatboxing can include singing, simulations of strings, horns, DJ mixing such as turntablism, organs, flutes, fifes and so on.
Imitating percussion sounds by vocal simulation is not really new. A traditional Eastern Indian practice dating back many thousand years ago is called bol. Bol, a mnemonic syllable or syllable used to remember the beat with, defines the tala or rhythmic pattern of Indian music. Mnemonic syllables are used for a large number of drumming practices in India, for instance, they are used for pakhawaj, mridangam and tabla. The syllable bol is used mostly for the tabla. The tabla is a type of drum. In China they have Kouji, from years ago, a vocal imitation of everyday life, which usually includes animal sounds, like birds and dogs, while evolving to include airplanes, buses and modern weapons. From Africa traditions include sound imitations and rhythm keeping that is achieved by slapping on the body, foot stomping and breathing in and out loudly.
Beatboxing which is know as the fifth element of hip hop, originated in the nineteen-eighties and possibly has some connection with scat singing or puirt a beul. Puirt a beul is from Scotland, Ireland and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, collectively, with very possibly foul lyrics together with a fetching rhythm, while scat singing is vocal jazz improvisation using nonsense words and syllables, from the United States.
The name beatboxing comes from the first drum machines, that were at the time of origin called beatboxes. Drum machines are musical instruments that can imitate the sound of drums and other percussion instruments, such as, chimes, cymbals, xylophones, congas and snares to name a few.
Many beatboxing artists have helped to hike the popularity of beatboxing. They have promoted it around the world. Also, due to distribution of beatboxing videos on popular video web sites, where people can view the beatboxing videos, its popularity has risen.
Persons in Leipzig, Germany organized, in 2005, a beatboxing world championship. People came from all parts of the world to participate. The final two contestants in the competition, before calling a winner, came from Belgium and Australia. The Australian won the championship.
Popular or famous beatboxers include The Fat Boys from Brooklyn, Rahzel from Pennsylvania, Bjork from Iceland, Joel Turner from Australia, Killa Kela from West Sussex, Poizunus from Toronto, Biz Markie from New York and the Kid Beyond from San Francisco.
To see
Beatboxing in action, to start learning how to do it yourself, you can find some great, free, online tutorials at
VideoJug.com. Check them out!
