Stevelegh
957 posts
May 06, 2014
4:28 AM
|
I've got to say, I'm sort of left scratching my head here. Beatboxing has been around for 30 years along with rapping and breakdancing. I remember treasuring a VHS tape featuring Africa Baambata in NYC from back in 1984 or so. Yes, some of the moves being busted on this vid are innovative / evolved but in relation to harmonica, I don't really see what this has to offer.
However, this vid was posted up recently by Harpdude and whilst it has no harp, I immediately thought that one man band players would hugely benefit from this girl's sense of harmony, rhythmn and chords.
Harpboxing doesn't seen to get much past the I and IV chords. I honestly didn't think it was possible to loop anything more, but this girl has proved that wrong. If I were to look anywhere to expand and evolve an existing genre of harmonica playing, it would be here.
|
The Iceman
1630 posts
May 06, 2014
4:42 AM
|
Perhaps it is not so much having beat boxing translated directly to harmonica playing as it is opening up one's mind to inspiration through embracing what is happening "on the street" as well.
----------
The Iceman
|
kudzurunner
4673 posts
May 06, 2014
5:10 AM
|
What I haven't told y'all is that I was trying to fuse beatboxing and harmonica playing back in 1988, when I was playing the streets of Harlem and black boys kept stopping by Mr. Satan's and my spot and asking if they could borrow my mic and "do a beatbox." I let them do that a couple of times. Eventually I spent some woodshed time trying to fuse their moves with my sounds. I wish I had a tape. Maybe I do. I'll check. The results weren't very promising. Beatboxing just wasn't my thing.
@steveleigh: Yes, beatboxing, in some variety, has been around for 30 years, but the stuff back then was nothing like this. In any case, the sound of beatboxing today, fused with good harp, would be new--at least in contrast to most of what passes for blues harmonica playing, on this website and elsewhere. The point of my post was simply that in the range of sounds being mixed together, the constant creation and interruption of grooves, and the sense of international community that is clearly evoked, all of it grounded in a version of contemporary black vernacular (street/club talk), these beat-boxers are a) really LISTENING to, and working with, the actual sounds of their urban club-zone environments, and b) are thus doing something that the great majority of us aren't doing. They are our creative shadows. They make us look and sound old. We don't have to sound like them, but we could, if we want, choose to learn from them in the manner that we approached music-making.
What they do is NOT my thing. I never said that I liked it--as in, wanting to devote my life to beatboxing. But if I was a young harp player these days, I would be paying attention.
BTW, I'm surprised that nobody has posted the most spectacular example of a contemporary player (y'all know him) who has taken train songs and fox chases and turned them inside out: Wade Schuman. He hasn't done so in a way that strikes me as yearning for a pop or youth market. But in his own fearless, experimental way, he's got a lot in common with the beatboxers:
Why is this modern, or postmodern? Not just the mixture of diatonic and blues tonalities with Central European & Middle Eastern tonalities; not just the tuvan throat singing thrown in here and there, but the fusion of two very different chugging narratives: the fox chase and the train song. Fox chases replicate foxes being chased by hounds. Train songs replicate the sound of a steam-powered iron behemoth chugging and then click-clacking down the rails. Put a fox chase and a train song together and you've got a musical cyborg: part animal, part steel. No deep South player from the classic period would have put the two narratives, with their representative sound fields, together. Wade is a painter, a visual artist, and he teaches art history. He knows exactly what he's doing--which is to say, he doesn't just have extraordinary chops and sound, but he knows exactly what it means to assemble all these sounds and then title it "Lost Fox Train." He knows where that places him in aesthetic history, which is right on the front end, in "now," even though he's recuperating a bunch of old American sounds.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 06, 2014 5:21 AM
|
isaacullah
2743 posts
May 06, 2014
5:55 AM
|
What this thread needs is an example of what is considered "grandmaster" level beatbox. Here's ReepsOne from the UK:
----------
YouTube! Soundcloud!
|
isaacullah
2744 posts
May 06, 2014
5:57 AM
|
And just for those who may doubt the musicality and musical chops of beatboxers, here's Reeps again:
----------
YouTube! Soundcloud!
|
The Iceman
1631 posts
May 06, 2014
6:12 AM
|
What these beat boxers have in common (and something we can learn from them) is their establishing a groove and a total attachment to this groove as they play "above the groove" with their variations and improvs.
No matter how far they take it out, they are always still firmly attached to the basic groove they establish.
As harmonica players, we should be able to do this when playing solo...establish a groove, improv over it and still keep an attachment.
----------
The Iceman
|
Frank
4213 posts
May 06, 2014
9:36 AM
|
Here is RL Burnside rappin :)
|
nacoran
7712 posts
May 06, 2014
12:09 PM
|
I think the shortcoming of beatbox contest montages is they are the equivalent of technical solos without hearing the whole song. I'd get bored watching a collection of drum video montages too. Even just a guy and a harp can get boring if there isn't some singing or some other instrument after 9 minutes. (There are exceptions, but...)
When it really gets fun is when someone gets a loop pedal involved, because then you start to hear the layering with melodies involved, like in this thread:
http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/5466350.htm
Remember, these beatbox solos are designed to show off the range of noises a beatboxer can produce and their mastery of the form, but not necessarily be stand alone pieces. When I've seen beat boxers perform, either at open mic or on YouTube, they have been either performing with someone else or with a loop pedal.
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
FatJesus
41 posts
May 07, 2014
10:10 AM
|
Adam, has Michael Winslow hacked your account again?
|
kudzurunner
4678 posts
May 07, 2014
11:07 AM
|
No. Adam works for me.
|
FatJesus
42 posts
May 07, 2014
11:15 AM
|
OK, Gussow--you win. That just made me spit up beer.
|
cyclodan
74 posts
May 07, 2014
6:39 PM
|
If the harp players of the world don't hop on this beatbox thing the fluteboxers will steal all our potential thunder...
Here's Brandon Bailey showing how it's done...
Last Edited by cyclodan on May 07, 2014 6:40 PM
|
kudzurunner
4685 posts
May 09, 2014
2:40 PM
|
Here's a harmonica player (still developing) and a beat boxer having a jam. Interesting!
|
jnorem
193 posts
May 09, 2014
6:04 PM
|
But this is only a novelty, it has nothing to offer to actual music performance.
I was 16 when I had my first studio experience in New York, and there was this guy who hung around with the band for some reason, who could do make a great trumpet sound with his hands and mouth, and he could improvise in a most convincing way. Whoop-de-doo. This was in 1969.
There are all sorts of amusing novelties that people come up with to do, people have been doing it for centuries, probably, and it's really stretching it to say that these novelties contain information that pertains to actually playing music on instruments.
In my opinion.
----------
Call me J
|
atty1chgo
925 posts
May 10, 2014
5:23 AM
|
Here is an interview of the legendary jazz drummer Max Roach where he discusses rap and the progression of music. Mr. Roach hits it exactly right.
Adam, I think I know where you are coming from on this now. And you are correct.
Last Edited by atty1chgo on May 10, 2014 5:30 AM
|
