THE BEATBOX ALPHABET

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Description Phonetic Simple kickdrum b

bo

bm

bʍ Classic snare bʃ

pʃ Simple closed hihats tt̚

ts

^tt̚

^ts Simple open hihat tsː

^tsː 606 snare tl

kl 808 snare tʃ ̆ 909 snare ⊙yʃ Reverse snare ^ʃp̚ Reverse hat ^ʃt̚ 808 rimshot k

ka Inhaling handclap ^tl Daysoftheweek kickdrum ðw Reverse kick fd ̚

vd ̚ 808 kick / techno swallow ⊙ Inhaling lip-kick ^ɓ

^[ɓ Description Phonetic Maracas or other "palatal trills" « Clicks !

ǁ

ǂ

(For the differences between these see the IPA) Click roll ǁǁǁ

[ǁǁǁ Tongue pop § Kissy-kissy hihat ※ Cough snare ⊙ə̥ Closed-hihat type "tutting" t’ Fast hats tkt 808 snare roll r̪ "Fading-in" snare roll rr̪ Quick unvocalised “tschowi” scratch tʃʍʂ Vocal tap ⁁ Reverse reverb ^ʂ

^ç

These symbols and diacritics (modifiers) are taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet - except that there are some things which aren't even covered by the IPA! (The main one is the techno swallow.) So here are the extra Unicode symbols I've added:

^ at the start means the sound is inhaled rather than exhaled [ indicates side-ness (for click rolls and for inhaling bass drum) ⊙ for the 808 kick / "techno swallow" ※ for the kissy-kissy hat ⁁ for vocal tap « for palatal trills § for tongue-pop

Where a sound has more than one entry, each one is a slightly different way of making the sound.

If you can't see these symbols properly:

If most of the symbols just look like little squares to you, then you're either using an old browser (earlier than v4 of Internet Explorer or Netscape) or you don't have any Unicode fonts installed. See this page for help.

An easy example

"bm - ts bm kl bm tkt bm kl bm tt̚ bʍ kl - tʃʍʂ bm"

This is an eight-bar pattern. (Every measure is separated by a space, and every silent measure is written as a dash.)