Abstract and Acknowledgements.

In the first part of this series of articles on the Phonetics of Beatboxing, Karen Lederer introduces us to beatboxing and its relevance to phonetics and Stowell's 'Beatbox Alphabet'.

In Part 2 of this series Karen Lederer outlines some general theories on the perception of speech and how speech and non-speech sounds are processed in the brain.

In Part 3 of this series, Karen Lederer applies the theories of how speech and non-speech sounds are processed in the brain to the perception of beatboxing and its differentiation from speech in the brain.

In Part 4 of Karen Lederer's series on the Phonetics of Beatboxing, she briefly outlines the electronic production of sound and the production of sound in the human vocal tract.

In Part 5 of Karen Lederer's series on the Phonetics of Beatboxing, she introduces the experimental comparison of vocally and electronically produced sounds.

In Part 6 of Karen Lederer's series on the Phonetics of Beatboxing, an acoustic comparison of beatboxed and machine-made sounds is made. Each sound studied is dealt with in a separate subsection and the results of each brought together in a conclusion at the end of this article.

The degree of accuracy with which drum machine sounds are replicated by beatboxed sounds depends on the properties of the original sound, however all imitations are easily identifiable as their electronic counterpart and they all achieve a balance between speech and non-speech that allows them to be perceived as either or both by the listener.

There are many avenues which can be investigated in relation to the phonetics of beatboxing. This study has hopefully provided an introduction to the subject which can be greatly expanded and improved upon in the future.

File information on the Roland TR808 sounds.