Be Curious, My Friend.

Curiosity is important.

Asking questions, wondering why, and trying to piece together the reasoning behind why people act the way they do is a wonderful tool for accent modification and language learning.

It is this curiosity that fosters the pursuit of knowledge; the interest in figuring out tendencies, behaviors, reasons to act a certain way, reason to not act a certain way.

When it applies to communication and pronunciation, that curiosity forms questions like:

Why do you say it like this?

Why don’t you say it like that?

When would you phrase it like option A?

What about option B? Was there a reason you didn’t phrase it like option B?

What is different between how I pronounce a word and how he/she pronounces it?

How wide is their mouth movement? How long do they hold each sound? Where is the sound coming from? The front of the mouth? the middle of the mouth? Or the back of the mouth?

These are the types of questions I think about. But for me, it comes when I watch videos of beatboxing.

Beatboxing is always a fascinating skill because it pushes the limits to what our mouth can do as an instrument.

These are people who have mastered or honed their craft in moving their lips, tongue, jaw, and are able to shape sounds in seemingly impossible ways.

My mind starts to race trying to figure out what they are doing.

How are they distorting or warping their mouth shape to change?

What are they doing to change the resonance and fullness of the sound?

Is air going into their mouth or out of their mouth?

Or is it neither and it’s instead flowing through their nose?

Where is their tongue placement? Where in the mouth is it contacting or approximating?

What about the pharynx or throat muscles. Are they contracting or relaxed?

This type of curiosity keeps me wondering and guessing and it definitely must be a driving force that pushes these beatboxers to try new techniques and innovative in sound production.

Sound exploration is a huge parallel between accent modification and beatboxing because you need to be willing to try, to explorer the soundscape that your mouth and voice can create.

And the only way you get better, is by sitting around and trying!