Talk:Vocal percussion

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The description of the sounds presented as those commonly used in vocal percussion is in fact a listing of those used in collegiate and professional american a capella groups. I'm putting that on the bottom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.64.139.69 (talk • contribs)

I've taken that further by eliminating the collegiate and professional distinction, because the form is spreading into the general community choirs. Here in London we have choirs coming together from the general population specialising in folk, gospel, pop and church acapella, and I understand from Bill Hare the same is happening in the States. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.121.173.156 (talk) 14:08, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Rubbing teeth

Fellas, there I was sitting there with my mouth closed, slightly rubbing my teeth together, when it dawned on me, what a neat way to make interesting sounds.

Of course you need a special microphone to pick them up somehow from inside or outside the closed mouth, but wow, with little effort expended compared to moving one's hands to rub things together, you can make all kinds of neat rhythms.

Since in the past nobody could hear them but you, it probably never became popular. But now that there is all kinds of electronic pickups, wow...

Or at least one can promote it for disabled musicians. Jidanni (talk) 23:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

History

Danny Kaye improvises a vocal percussion accompaniment to "Snow", an arrangement in White Christmas, 1954. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.121.173.156 (talk) 12:44, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Taxonomy

One section desperately needed is a classification of different techniques. One might start with bass beats, add cymbal crashes, drum riffs, and anything else that comes to mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.121.173.156 (talk) 12:57, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Reworking of Western Music section

Because it's so screwed, I've taken a major axe to it. I'm a practicing acapella performer, leading voice workshops sections in the London Acapella Festival and London Jazz Festival, and I'm on first-name terms with Bill Hare. My critiques are as follows

Paragraph 1

The term "beatboxing" is often used as a synonym for vocal percussion, but in fact is just one tradition of vocal percussion, originating in hip-hop music and often used to accompany rapping. Recent musicological research points at Brazilian songwriter and musician Marcos Valle as a pioneer of vocal percussion.[citation needed] In the track "Mentira" from his 1973 album "Previsao do Tempo", Valle emulates a drum kit with his voice by performing one repeating pattern and one fill.

This paragraph has two distinct subjects, Beatbox and History. I've moved the former to the next paragraph and kept the history, although it's not the oldest by a long way: reference should be made to scat trumpet imitations and the Judge's solo at the start of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, which includes a guitar vocalisation.

On beatboxing, the meme should be less concerned with opinion than fact, so I've cut out the hearsay and gone for fact.

Paragraph 2

The vocal percussion used by most college and professional a cappella groups attempts a more complete facsimile of the pop music that these groups primarily perform. It is not necessary for vocal percussionists to attempt to imitate real instruments; in fact, vocal percussion often encompasses sounds not found on a drum set. When it is used to imitate drumset music, however, vocal percussionists use three basic sounds: bass drum, snare drum, and cymbal. Variations on these sounds can be used to approximate other elements of a drum kit. A pitched bass drum is used to replace a floor tom; cymbal sounds can either be made short like a high hat (employing a sharp ts-ts-ts sound) or long like a crash or ride cymbal (attacked with a psh or a ksh sound). When used in a cappella music, vocal percussion is used to keep time for the members of the ensemble. It is sometimes the only percussion that can be heard by the audience, and works as a complement to the music director's conducting.

The first sentence is incorrectly constraining: VP is used by far more than college and pro groups. As a ferinstance, last Thursday our community choir was singing an enforcedly acappella carols set in London's Royal Festival Hall (our keyboards having been drowned in the rain) when an unknown beatboxer came in behind us from the audience. Acappella's not primarily pop, for that matter, and VP doesn't set out to imitate instruments but to replace them with something more fitted to the performance. Nor for that matter is it there to keep time! Heck, a choir which can keep accurate pitch has no troubes with timekeeping! It's positively insulting. Furthermore, whereas once acappella stretched - just about - to include a basic percussion accompaniment, of late that has virtually disappeared. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.121.173.156 (talk) 16:03, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Unicorn

Unicorn 2.248.108.114 (talk) 15:06, 11 June 2022 (UTC)