Abstract

Beatboxing is a musical artform in which performers use their vocal tract to create percussion sounds. Sometimes beatboxers perform as a part of an ensemble, using their vocal tract to provide a beat for other musicians; other times, beatboxers perform alone, where they might sing and produce percussion sounds simultaneously. We present methods in real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) that offer new ways to study the production of beatboxing sounds. Using these tools, we show how beatboxers can concatenate intricate articulations to create music that mimics the sound of percussion instruments and other sound effects. The rtMRI methodology reveals how different beatboxers play their vocal folds to perform characteristic “clean” or breathy styles. By using rtMRI to characterize different beatboxing styles, we show how video signal processing can demystify the mechanics of artistic style.

Date

September 1, 2018

Authors

Timothy Greer, Reed Blaylock, Nimisha Patil, Shrikanth S Narayanan

Journal

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Volume

144

Issue

3_Supplement

Pages

1827-1827

Publisher

Acoustical Society of America