In and out: production mechanisms in Human Beatboxing

Abstract

Human Beatboxing (HBB) is a musical technique produced with vocal tract movements. In this study we investigate HBB production mechanisms of 9 drum imitations produced in isolation by 5 beatboxers. Based on aerodynamic (intraoral pressure and oral airflow), acoustic and laryngoscopic data we were able to identify gestures. Results show beatboxers use a wider range of production mechanisms compared to speech production. Indeed, we found both ingressive and egressive airflow initiated either in the mouth, the larynx or the lungs. For a same sound we found that participants were able to use different mechanisms such as a combination of glottalic and pulmonic airstreams. This raises questions concerning the coordination of initiatory mechanisms and its planification. HBB differs from speech production because it is a musical system that does not rely on linguistic constraints such as intelligibility of semantic meaning so patterns are not as restricted as in speech. Human Beatboxing is a great paradigm to explore the vocal tract capacities during production. Beatboxers have an extended control of their vocal tract to combine different initiation and articulation mechanisms. HBB offers new perspectives on articulatory complexity, phonetic diversity of the world’s languages and potential application for speech pathology.