Little Richard speaks percussionese—the proto-language of drums. Check out his impression of a drum fill in Tutti Frutti for your MP3 player.
Drag over the black stemmed noteheads…
Drag over that final “boom” a few more times. Listen to how Little releases that note. He is very great.
The people of Percussionesia speak a peculiar dialect, characterized by Western ears as “noisy and fast”, consisting of phoneticized rock drums.
In Percussionesian legend, the ancestors were given their language from the thunder god Bhoom-tsit !Plah, during a hundred year storm.
The modern beatbox is a partially reconstructed Percussionese devoid of its original meaning.
Let me show you. Here’s your basic 4/4 rock ‘n’ roll beat.
And here’s the same beat translated into percussionese.
Now you can “speak-a the drums” to your friends. Notice how every word in Percussionese is followed by AN! EXCLAMATION! POINT!
