How to read and write SBN

1. Sounds

Sounds are represented as one or more lowercase letters of the English alphabet. Here are examples of sounds expressed using SBN:

Note: A full description of sounds will be described in section n.

2. Grooves

A beatboxing performance is usually divided into large sections such as a routine, verse or chorus, and these sections are divided into smaller sections called bars or measures. A bar or measure is divided into beats. In SBN, the beats are comprised of one or more sounds. In SBN, a collection of beats and sounds is called a groove. A groove is a unique sequence of human beatbox sounds. In SBN, the groove is enclosed in square brackets [ ] and each sound is separated with a single space. Here is an example of a simple groove expressed in SBN:

Two grooves would be represented like this:

3. Beats

Each beat in a bar or measure is separated by a forward slash / symbol. The beat sections make it easier to learn a groove in stages. Here are three examples of a two-beat groove, each with two beats:

4. Four-beat Grooves

Typically in human beatboxing, a bar or measure will have four beats. This means you can count along with the music "1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4". When this is the case the groove will be divided into four sections, one for each beat. Here is an example of a 4-beat groove with 8 sounds in a row:

Here is an example of a 4-beat groove with 16 sounds in a row:

5. Rests

In a groove, sometimes no sound is made and this rest may be shown using an underscore _. Here is an example of an 4-groove using rests: