Boots and cats! : Beatboxing from a pedagogical perspective

Sammanfattning: This thesis attempts to discover how and when beatboxers learn this art form, and also if that differs depending on when they were born. My hypothesis was that beatboxers who grew up without the aid of YouTube and similar online resources learned it in a fundamentally different way than those born into the Internet Age. I also wanted to find out if they were happy about the way they learned beatboxing, or if they in general would have preferred a more methodical and pedagogical structure to their learning. I posted a questionnaire on numerous social media forums in addition to personally sending it to many beatboxing friends and acquaintances, receiving 47 replies in total. Most respondents had learned beatboxing in high school or college, but many of the younger beatboxers had learned it earlier, which I believe is due to its increasing popularity. The study found that while approximately a third of the respondents were happy with the way they had learned, nearly half expressed a wish for a more structured, methodical learning process or a teacher to help them progress. I believe the findings of this study highlight a need for beatboxing to be included as a future instrument in music pedagogy education programs to help the next generation of beatboxers in the progression of this art form.