成人快手

What is body percussion?

Sometimes we might be somewhere without any musical instruments. But this doesn't mean we can't make music!

Body percussion is one way we can make music just using our bodies.

How many sounds can you make just using your body?

A cartoon image of singer and songwriter Omar with a group of 5 young children all trying body percussion.
Back to top

Watch: This is me with Omar

There are many different sounds you can make with your body. Let's explore more with singer and songwriter Omar.

Back to top

Watch: What is beatboxing?

As well as using our bodies, we can also use our voice.

Beatboxing can often be about trying to copy sounds of the drum kit.

Watch how to use our voice as a percussion instrument by beatboxing.

Back to top
A cartoon image of a young girl clapping and stamping to make body percussion sounds.

Beatboxing game

To remember some of these sounds, we can play a fun game.

  1. With some friends or family, slowly count to four all together.

  2. When you鈥檙e ready, pick a number you are going to clap on instead of saying the number, then repeat saying the numbers one to four. You might choose to clap on the number one, so it would be clap, two, three, four.

  3. When you can do that, change number two to a different sound and practise.

  4. Then number three鈥 keep going until all four numbers are different sounds!

Back to top

Watch: How to write body percussion down?

Now that we鈥檝e got a good mixture of sounds to choose from, let鈥檚 see if we can create our own beat.

Watch how to create a grid for the sounds to go in, to help us remember what to play.

Back to top
A cartoon image of a young boy stamping and clapping to make body percussion noise.

Activities

Create your own beat

Have a go at composing your own body percussion music.

You could draw a grid like Mr Brown or write your ideas on pieces of paper so you can move them around.

Once you're happy, you've got your very own beat that you can play anywhere.

Can you teach it to your friends or family? Maybe you can even play it with some other people playing instruments and create your own piece of music!

A cartoon image of a young boy stamping and clapping to make body percussion noise.
A cartoon image of singer and songwriter Omar Lye Fook beneath the words 'have a go'.

Slow it down if it's too tricky.

If you're finding it easy, try making some of the sounds louder and quieter.

You can try and play the whole piece faster.

Back to top

Quiz

Back to top

Glossary

Here's the meanings to some important words.

Body percussion - Making sounds with your body or voice.
Composing - Creating your own music.
Dynamics - The volume of the music. How quiet or loud it is.

Back to top

Play Bitesize Primary games. game

Fun and educational primary games in science, maths, English, history, geography, art and design, computing and modern languages.

Play Bitesize Primary games
Back to top