- My name's Butterscotch.
I'm a singer, beatboxer, first female beatbox world champion
and you may have seen me on America's Got Talent
and today we're gonna break down 13 levels
of complexity in beatboxing.
[beatboxing]
Beatboxing is the art of vocal percussion
so every sound you make is only using your mouth.
It's one of the most unique things that you can do
because everyone is different
so we're all gonna have some sort of different style
that we add.
So remember, this is my version
of what makes beatboxing complex.
Level one, bass drum.
So we're gonna start with the simplest sound
which is the bass drum and this is the heartbeat.
It sets the tempo and the tone for whatever beat
you're gonna do.
So the perfect way to get this sound
is to really accentuate your lips
and the air pushing through.
And so what you're really doing
is forcing the air out of your mouth.
It's gonna take time to build up that muscle
in your lips but once you get the strength,
then it's gonna be a clean hard ...
So we have the bass drum but now,
we need another percussive element
to help drive that beat.
Level two, snare.
So we're gonna take bass drum and add a snare to it.
[beatboxing]
This is what actually makes the beat.
It's not just a heartbeat.
The easiest and quickest way to beatbox
is just to say boots and cats together.
Boots, cats.
Saying these two words together
are prepping your mouth for the right form
to beatbox with the right sounds.
So when you say these two words together,
you're creating a very simple rhythm
that people can play over or rap over
or jam over.
Boots, cats, boots, cats.
[beatboxing]
Level three, hi hat.
So we got the bass.
We've got the snare.
And now we're adding the hi hat.
And this is completing the elements
of the basic sounds of a drum kit.
Everything else in beatboxing,
they're just embellishments.
And if you wanna see the core elements,
here's a drum kit.
You've got your bass, you've got your snare,
and you've got your hi hat.
[beatboxing]
with the hi hat, you really wanna
make these sounds tight and this
is what makes the rhythm move.
It pushes it and it sounds almost
like a sprinkler too.
[beatboxing]
You don't want it to be too loose
'cause then you're gonna lose that technical sound
that you want.
That's just not gonna hit it.
You just gotta make it clean.
[beatboxing]
Hi hats can be closed.
[drumming]
Or they can also be open.
So now that we have our core sounds,
let's introduce a basic beat.
So beats can be anything but this
is the simplest, most basic hiphop beat.
So I'm taking the bass, I'm taking the snare
and I'm taking the hi hat and I'm gonna
put them in this order.
So I can throw in another bass drum
which makes the rhythm and the pattern
sound a little bit more exciting.
It's one thing to just make those sounds
but over time as you practice
and your lips get stronger, you're gonna
sound like this.
[beatboxing]
So this is super simple.
It's basically the Mary Had A Little Lamb of hiphop beats.
If you listen back to La Di Da Di, Doug E. Fresh,
the original human beat box,
this is the beat that's behind it.
♪ Yo, peep this ♪
♪ La Di Da Di, we like to party ♪
♪ We don't cause trouble, don't bother nobody ♪
So this whole time, the snare I've been using,
it can become kind of monotonous
if you're just always using the same type of snare,
even just within a song.
So what happens when I change it up
and make things a little bit more complex.
I can interchange the snare with a bunch
of other different sounds
and that's what makes it more dynamic.
I can do puh sounds.
[beatboxing]
So combining the puh.
You can mix them all up and come up
with all different kinds of snares.
The puh sounds are more like hitting the snare
or drum machine where as the [mimicking drums] sound
is like a rim shot.
You don't wanna use all the sounds all at once.
It'd be like having a drummer
just play every single drum and it's not
really making a beat, it's just sound.
[beatboxing]
So when you first start beatboxing,
you're pretty much gonna have to
plan out your breaths.
Most of the snares that I'm using,
I'm breathing outward.
So this is what it looks like when all the sounds
that I'm using are breathing out.
[beatboxing]
I ran out of breath because there's no time
to even catch my breath, whereas
if I'm breathing inward,
I can go faster, I can breathe
while I'm actually beatboxing.
I can just interlace my breathing
with the beat itself.
After a while, then it just becomes second nature
and you can just breathe within the beat.
So when you're a drummer, sometimes you
make two sounds at once.
I only have one mouth so this level
of complexity is taking two of the core elements
of the drum kit and putting them together.
So here's my bass and here's my hi hat
and I'm just gonna combine them.
So this is me doing it normal.
And this is me adding the bass and hi hat together.
[beatboxing]
You can add multiple sounds at the same time
but we're gonna save that for a couple levels later.
Everything we've been doing up to now
has been percussive but now level seven,
adding a bassline.
I don't have the vocal range to go super low
but what I can do is vibrate my lips
and get this certain frequency
that creates this tone and this pitch
so with this lip bass, I'm basically
just vibrating my lips but this
is getting a tighter form and you're actually
making pitches and tones.
So I'm gonna take this bass sound
and add it to the beat.
[beatboxing]
This is the limit of what I can do
with the bass sound since I don't
have the vocal cords that stretch that low
but with other beatboxers like Inertia,
[beatboxing]
who can go super, super low
that create this like subwoofer bass.
[beatboxing]
All levels up to now have been using my mouth
but now we're gonna add another level of complexity
by using my throat.
Level eight, humming.
Humming and beatboxing is one of the most difficult things
because you're using different parts of your mouth
and your throat and your lips all at the same time
so you wanna get that humming sound,
more kind of nasally, and then throw the beat
on top of that.
[beatboxing]
so when you're first starting out, just hum
and then make the bass drum noise at the same time.
The hardest thing is adding the snare on top of that
because a lot of people will wanna go--
[beatboxing]
But that doesn't really sound that great.
If you go [humming] and then [mimicking bass].
[beatboxing]
That's a little bit cleaner.
So I'm gonna take that bass sound
and add another note on top of it.
Which gives it a richer sound.
One of my favorite beatboxers
is the current world female beatbox champion,
Kaila Mullady, and she adds these musical elements
to make her beatboxing stand out.
[beatboxing]
So far, everything we've done has
been instrumental so let's add some lyrics.
The easiest way to begin is to start with B words
because you're already saying buh
with the bass drum so you can say banana.
♪ Banana ♪
Or you could say beatbox.
♪ Beat, box, beat, box ♪
You can also use it with P 'cause that's the same shape
that your mouth is already making for those sounds.
Pop tart, pop tart, pop tart.
♪ Pop tart ♪
So with other consonants, it's a little bit harder.
♪ Crunchy taco ♪
There is a split second, like say if I'm saying zebra,
I'm just saying it a split hair after I do the bass drum
so it's zebra, zebra, zebra.
But if I'm doing it so fast, it sounds
like I'm doing it at the same time.
Zebra, zebra, zebra.
Or if you have a guh sound
which sounds almost impossible to do a [mimicking drums]
and a guh sound at the same time
but once you've been doing it a long time,
pretty much any word is possible.
♪ Gorilla ♪
[beatboxing]
♪ Gorilla ♪
So the most exciting moment in beatbox history
for me is when Rahzel beatboxed and sang
at the same time.
♪ If your mother only knew ♪
He sang if, if.
You wouldn't normally think a bass drum
and if would go at the same time.
If your mother.
♪ If your mother ♪
Mother.
At the same time, that's crazy too.
♪ If your mother only knew ♪
[beatboxing]
Before that, people had rapped and beatboxed,
maybe did a little singing in beatbox
but it wasn't as cohesive and clean
and it blew people's minds.
That's one of the reasons I'm beatboxing today.
There's a form that's kind of taking off as well
that Kid Lucky started and amazing beatboxers
like Kaila Mullady are doing it.
[beatboxing]
♪ I ain't going nowhere if you ain't by my side ♪
So now we're gonna get more complex
by adding different sound effects.
This is where you find your style.
What really makes you stand out.
So these are different sounds that I've
been developing over the years.
I have the lip bass.
Tongue bass.
Growl bass.
Slizzer roll.
Trumpet.
Scratching.
♪ Ah yeah ♪
When I was younger, I used to bark like a dog.
I would do that in class and scare people.
You don't have to be good at all these different sounds
to be a good beatboxer.
Just find the sounds that you love
and that represent you and that's your style.
I would say my trumpet is one of my most unique
and signature sounds.
It brings out what makes my music me.
I'm inspired by people like Miles Davis
or Dizzy Gillespie.
I love jazz and that's what I grew up with.
I love classical music so I'm trying
to get better at making a nice violin sound.
[mimicking violin]
Emulating real instruments are probably the hardest
because this is what people are most familiar with.
When you're trying to make the same sound,
you've gotta have it pretty spot on.
Before I move on to level 11, here's the first 10 levels
all together.
[beatboxing]
♪ Beatbox ♪
For this next level, we're gonna
go just back to the beat but this time,
it's all about new school.
Level 11, intricate beats.
So I'm starting with a drum and bass beat.
[beatboxing]
You can hear all the things that I'm doing
which sound simple but as I go faster,
it sounds a bit more complex.
This level's more complex because your brain
has to catch up with what your mouth is doing
or your mouth has to catch up with what your brain
is trying to do
but everything starts with a very simple beginning
and you can just like work it up and go as fast as you can.
You can take it to the exponential level
with how fast you can go, with how many sounds you
can do within a certain beat.
It's incredibly technical.
So complexity isn't just about going for speed.
For me, it's about being multi-dimensional.
For level 12, I'm doing a classic song,
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and I'm singing,
beatboxing, and playing the guitar at the same time.
So it's complex because my brain is having
to operate at a different level trying to do the beat
and play and sing.
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
So I add a trumpet at the beginning
to give it kind of a jazzy flair
that just sets up the song in a nice way.
So it could be other instruments
but I love playing guitar, I love taking classics
and just flipping them and making them sound more new.
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
In this last performance, I'm gonna be live looping
which is overdubbing all the instruments that you see.
I have my keyboard, my guitar, my loop station.
Beatbox, vocals, different sound effects
and the classic trumpet sound.
[mimicking trumpet]
So I sing, beatbox, or play into the loop station
and it creates different layers that overdub.
It's complex because I'm
combining so many different elements,
different instruments.
There's no room for error because every sound
has to be on the beat because it's looped.
[beatboxing]
[piano music]
[humming]
[guitar playing]
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪
♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪
♪ Swing low ♪
I love beatboxing because it's completely unique.
You're able to do so much just with your own body.
There's all sorts of levels and intricacies
of what makes beatboxing multi-dimensional.
It's portable, it's fun, and it's pretty damn special.
So I hope you enjoyed it and thanks, Wired.
♪ Swing low ♪
[clapping]