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1. Atherton, M. (2007).  Rhythm-speak: Mnemonic, language play or song?  The inaugural International Conference on Music

            Communication Science, Sydney, Australia.  Retrieved from http://marcs.uws.edu.au/links/ICoMusic.

 

            In this paper, Atherton presents the idea of rhythm-speak as a way of communication.   He opens with the idea of how syllables are shared through the use of music by referencing a story that occurred to him in a junior high music class.  In the middle of the paper, the author gives examples of different types of mouth music around the world including Australia, Ghana, Cuba, Europe, and Asia.  At the end of the paper, a short section is devoted to the art of beatboxing.   

 

2. Barlow, S. (2012).  A heritage in extended techniques.  Flute Focus, May 17.  Retrieved from

            http://www.flutefocus.com/Contemporary/heritage-extended-techniques.html.

 

            In this short article, Barlow explores the ideas of vocal percussion with the flute.  He presents a short history from the work of Quantz (1752), as well as Howell (1974). Exploring the handbook produced by Howell, there are six articulations (t, T, d, h, p, and k) that can be produced to make sound on the flute.  In a table, Barlow shows a comparison of the Howell articulations with beatbox sounds.   

 

3. Duchan, J. (2007).  Collegiate a cappella: Emulation and originality.  American Music, 25(4), 477-506.

 

            In this article, Duchan highlights the use of vocal techniques in choral music settings.  He gives a short history, starting in 1807, presenting the first collegiate groups that originated in universities in the United States.  Through the historical journey, the author presents the emergence of vocal techniques imitating instruments in the 1950’s.  In section three, Duchan discusses the use of syllables in music to imitate instruments, and further explorers the use of vocal percussion (beatboxing) in section five. 

 

4. Goldblatt, D. (2013).  Nonsense in public places: Songs of black vocal rhythm and blues or doo-wop.  The Journal of Aesthetics and

            Art Criticism, 71(1), 101-110.

 

            In this paper, Goldblatt brings attention to a historical period of time called the doo-wop, a sub-genre of rock-n-roll.   During the 1950’s, many young African American musicians would take to street corners and perform their music, however they did not have instruments.  Thus, vocalists used their voices to imitate instrument sounds using nonsense syllables, which later became known as doo-wop syllables (containing over 400 different sounds).  Many of the a cappella groups of this time period used the doo-wop syllables to harmonize as well as accompany the soloist.

 

5. John, D. (2006).  Lips Inc.  The Village Voice, 51(49), 26-28, 30, 32, 37-38, 40.

 

            The article opens following a musical group, Lips Inc. as they perform their music on the L-train of the subway system in New York.  The article moves onto profile beatboxer Lucky (Terry Lewis), who shares his story of starting his journey of beatboxing.  He notes artists that he looks up to including Rahzel, Kenny Muhammad, Matisyahu, Björk, and Justin Timberlake.  The article also goes to profile Ready Rock C, a human beatboxer who accompanied Will Smith during the early 80’s and expresses some of the hardships he encountered.  The article returns back to Lucky who shares the many great things that are happening with their group.

 

6. Lederer, K. (2005).  The phonetics of beatboxing.  Leeds, UK: Leeds University.  Retrieved from

            http://humanbeatbox.free.fr/eng/index.php?page=articles.

 

            The dissertation was downloaded under the articles section from humanbeatbox.com.  Karen Lederer was an undergraduate student of linguistics and phonetics at Leeds University and the paper was written as a dissertation for the degree.  In the paper, Lederer presents an analysis of the phonetic characteristics of how to beatbox.  With the aim on phonetics, Lederer focuses on how the vocalist creates the imitated beatbox sounds studying how the vocal tract engages in the production of sound.  

 

7. Protor, M., Bresch, E., Byrd, D., Nayak, K., and Narayanan, S. (2013).  Paralinguistic mechanisms of production in human “beatboxing”: A real-time magnetic resonance imaging study.  Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133(2), 1043-1045.

 

            In this study, the researchers, using real-time magnetic resonance imaging, studied how a beatboxer makes sounds by examining the movement and coordination of the vocal tract.   One participant was used, a 27 year old beatboxer who had been in the trade for 10 years.  Five sounds were analyzed from 40 recordings lasting between 20 to 40 seconds: kick drum, rim shot, snare drum, hi-hat, and cymbal.  The researchers determined that mechanisms of human sound production, airstream control, and speech articulators may be coordinated for musical and linguistic purposes.  The authors note the limitation of only using one subject and future research should examine a broader range.  NOTE: Kapur et al. (2004) studied the classification of two beatboxers and Sinyor et al. (2005) studied six participants, however both studies used audio recordings not imaging in the data collection.

 

8. Stowell, D, and Plumbley, M. (2008).  Characteristics of beatboxing vocal style.  Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary,

            University of London, C4DMTR-08-01.  Retrieved from http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~markp/2008/StowellPlumbley08-tr0801.pdf.

 

            Stowell and Plumbley present the phonetic characteristics of how to beatbox.  In this technical report, the authors explain that the vocal technique of creating drum track sounds comes from the production of the beatboxer to manipulate vowel and consonant sounds to imitate drum tracks.   To help the audience understand the mechanics of beatboxing, the authors explore the topics of non-syllabic patterns, inhaled sounds, voice quality, oscillatory sounds (trills, rolls, and buzzes) and microphone techniques characteristic of the art form.

 

9. Thompson, T. (2011). Beatboxing, mashups, and cyborg identity: Folk music for the twenty-first century.  Western Folklore, 70(2), 171-

            193).

 

            In this article, Thompson discusses new forms of music found in the twenty-first century.  In the first half of the article, the author discusses how beatboxing is growing as a musical form globally.  Through the discussion, he gives an overview of the history of beatboxing from http://humanbeatbox.com and presents the growth of the musical form on the Internet.  Thompson articulates that as a form of folk music, the Internet is generating the way of how this musical expression is being developed through the use of podcasting by giving teaching techniques as well as providing performances of the art form through YouTube.

 

10. World Beatbox Community. (2013) Retrieved from https://www.humanbeatbox.com/forum/content.php

 

            The world beatbox website is an online community that provides information about beatboxing.  Included on the website is an area where people can register to become members in the community.  Some features of the community include an online forum where members can post and answer questions, read articles, learn the basics of beatboxing, shop, blog, share videos, and find out about competitions.  Included in the articles section are three documents about the history of beatboxing by TyTe and Defenicial, as well as a techniques section, including videos of how to beatbox and hold the microphone.