Fundamentals of Beatboxing

Hey, this is Dana with the fundamentals of beatboxing.

Preparation

Before we get started with a beatboxing session, it's really important to be prepared. Here are a few essentials:

• Water: Keep a bottle of water by your side.
• Lip Balm: I also like to keep moisturized using lip balm because it makes a real difference. When your lips or mouth are dry, the sounds can sound completely different.

Warm-Up Exercises

Next, you want to get warmed up. Think of beatboxing like an exercise because you're using muscles to create sound. To get ready:

1. Lip Oscillations: You can do this in two ways:

   • With humming, like I did now.
   • Without using your vocal cords, like this: [demonstrate].

   What this does is warm up the muscles around your mouth and loosen everything up so that it's relaxed enough to contract properly.

2. Breathing Control:

   • Place your hand on your diaphragm, just above your tummy.
   • Take a deep breath in and watch your hand go up.
   • Then, breathe out, and your hand should go down. This indicates that you're engaging your diaphragm.

   Your diaphragm is crucial for power, allowing you to release air quickly and create a massive sound.

3. Breathing Exercise:

   • Take a deep breath in and hold it for a few seconds.
   • Breathe out very slowly and in a controlled manner.

   This not only shows that your diaphragm is working but also helps you get stronger over time. Consider timing yourself to track your progress.

Next Steps

Once you've done a few exercises for breathing control and strengthened your diaphragm, we can move on to creating some cool sounds, starting that in the next lesson.