Tom Thum & Dr Matthew Broadhurst: What happens in your throat when you beatbox? | Tom Thum and Dr. Matthew Broadhurst

Tom Thum: (Beatboxing) Yo, what up? My name is Tom Thum, and I've got to say it's a pleasure to be back at TEDx. When I first stepped upon the Sydney stage in 2013 as a starry-eyed boy from Brisbane, I had no idea that I was about to deliver the most watched TEDx presentation ever. (Laughter) (Applause) But you know, I was stoked because it was completely unexpected. However, standing before you today as a slightly inflated, time-battered version of myself five years later, I'm very confident. (Laughter) Confident that I'm about to deliver the most instantly switched-off and walked-out-on, vomit-inducing talk of all time. (Laughter) For those unfamiliar with what I do, I guess if you distilled it right down to its essence, you would call me a beatboxer. (Beatboxing) Yo, for example ... (Beatboxing) here's a sample: (Beatboxing) (Rhythm changes) (Hums a tune) (Applause and cheers) Thank you. (Applause) And being a beatboxer, it means that, professionally, I am 100 percent reliant on the - (Beatboxing) flexibility of the unfiltered human voice. And for years, my contemporaries and I have been fielding questions like, "Oh my God, that's so cool. When did you figure out you could do that?" After I practiced for thousands and thousands of hours. (Laughter) "And what do you do for a real job?" "I'm a full-time beatboxer, Your Honor." But there is one question that I get quite a lot that's a little bit more difficult to answer. And that is, How are you doing it, how are you making those noises? And, I mean, I know muscle memory dictates where I position my lips in order to - (Beatboxing) But I have no idea about the inner mechanics of everything. You know, all the flappy bits and kind of dangly things and how they interact in a way that allows me to - (Beatboxing) To put it metaphorically, I know how to drive, I just don't know what's under the hood. So, I decided to find out and invite 5,000 captive strangers, a few uncomfortable cameras, everybody watching online and their browser history into a place where not even the most intimate of encounters have been: my throat. And to help me do that, I'd like to introduce to the stage a very specialist guest, from the Queensland Voice Center, a man that's been in my mouth more times than I'd care to admit, a legend of the larynx, ENT doctor and laryngeal surgeon, Matthew Broadhurst. (Applause and cheers) Matthew Broadhurst: Thank you, Tom. Thank you. And a very good evening, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here on the TEDx stage tonight. (Laughter) Whoo! (Laughter) TT: He's not warming up his hands. It doesn't get that intimate. (Laughter) MB: We set out a little while ago to try to go deep into the world - and the throat - of this beatboxer extraordinaire to try to understand how such a vast array of sounds is humanly possible. So this will be a world first. TT: Oh, yes. This will be the world first, live on-stage, naso-pharyngo-laryngoscopic analysis of a beatboxer. (Laughter) MB: So when we make sound, we use the vocal cords to take air from the lungs, and then turn it into a vibrating air column in the throat. If you think of it like a trumpet, we've got the mouthpiece - that's the vocal folds - and then the horn section is the throat. If we took your head off, took a bit of your neck off, and left you as a torso with just your vocal folds vibrating, this is what you'd sound like. (Flatulent sound) Pretty hard to communicate, but fortunately we've got a throat. We've got all the soft tissues, and that actually gives you all the incredible dynamics of sound that you'll hear tonight. Now, this is a rigid laryngoscope. TT: Spicy boy. MB: I know, I know. (Laughter) Ten millimeters in diameter, it gives us the highest resolution image of the larynx we can get. Alright, you ready? (Laughter) TT: (Singing) E MB: So that's the vibrating vocal folds - about 120 hertz. Means they've collided 120 times a second just to make that sound. And we can also see that they're absolutely, perfectly normal. So all his beatboxing, all those sounds for years with Tom's way of doing it - absolutely no damage whatsoever. That's really remarkable. Well done. Okay. TT: (High pitch) I've got this. MB: So watch now as the vocal cords go from high pitch to low pitch. You'll see them go from long and skinny to short and fat. TT: (High to low pitch) MB: Right. TT: (High to low pitch) MB: And what you can see is that his vocal range is so extreme - much more extreme than any other performer I've worked with - the machine actually can't capture the really high pitches. So now, we're going to swap over to the flexible laryngoscope. So hold onto the stomachs, and let's see what we can do. (Audience gasps) So we're going to the back of the nose, and there you can see the soft palate. A lot of the sounds we make from day to day, even the simple ones, are incredibly complex. The sound "kh" for example. It's the soft palate sealing up precisely against the back of the nose. So if you say it loudly five times, feel your own soft palate snapping against the back of the throat, Kh, kh, kh, kh, kh. Alright, so this is what it looks like when Tom does it. TT: Kh, kh, kh, kh, kh. A cacophony of cackling kookaburras and cockatoos in Kakadu couldn't quite quit ketamine. (Laughter) (Applause) MB: Alright, now in the beatboxing world, of course, they can use that for all sorts of different effects. TT: (Beatboxing) MB: Alright. (Cheers) (Applause) Now we're going to slide down a little further. So, what you can see there, that's the base of the tongue. The side walls of the screen, that's the pharynx. All muscle walls, and in the deep, dark decks is the larynx. It's just his unique use of all the muscles and soft tissues which lets him do all these amazing sounds that you're going to hear. So, we will dissect some of these sounds for you now. (High-pitched sounds) So what he's doing is he's changing the shape and length of the vibrating air column, using rhythmic contractions of all the muscles to generate all those sounds that you're hearing. TT: (Beatboxing) MB: And now there's rhythmic movements of the - they're the arytenoid cartilages way down there, rocking back and forth to create that different sound. TT: (Low-pitched sound) MB: And we like to call this "sphincter bass." (Laughter) And what you can see is that collapsing all the tissue down (Laughter) allows a different kind of really deep bass note. Alright, so with some local anesthetic on board, a big black hose in the nose, we're going to let loose a sliver of his repertoire and see all this in play. TT: (Beatboxing) (Applause) We start from the basics and build from scratch. (Beatboxing) Yeah, like that. (Beatboxing) (Trumpet sounds) (Beatboxing) Yeah, we're getting back to basics. Make some noise! (Cheers) (Applause) Thank you so much TEDx for enduring that. I want to give a massive, massive shout-out to Dr. Matthew Broadhurst from the Queensland Voice Center for donating his time and his expertise. I also want to give a massive shout-out to Pentax for all this cutting-edge equipment that made this possible. And for you guys, thank you so much for sitting through it. If you need a hug, I'll be crying in the shower. (Laughter) Next time a performer asks you to make some noise, I hope you have an intimate understanding of how to do it. Thank you so much! (Applause and cheers)