With only a microphone, his throat and mouth Colby Ouellette can create an entire song from scratch.
Not by singing, but instead by beatboxing. Combining the click of his tongue, repeated sounds and grunting Ouellette can mimic several different percussion elements including drums, basslines and other instruments. It's a skill and passion he's developed over the last two years.
"It's basically creating music with anything vocal. Your lips, your tongue, your throat and creating full pieces like you would have in a band," Ouellette said. "In a band, you have your drums, your guitarists and everything in between. In beatbox you do all of that with just your vocal muscles. People make full songs with it, weird sounds with it and any sound the human body can make, we use to our full advantage."
Ouellette, a Grade 12 student at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School, describes himself as a jack of all trades when it comes to the arts. He loves to dabble in most forms of art be they drawing, music or 3D modelling.
Two years ago Ouellette said he was watching a reaction video on YouTube when he came across a clip of a professional beatboxer. Ouellette said that brief clip just clicked with him and made him want to give beatboxing a try.
"The process was I tried to find more of that beatboxer I found in the reaction video and it sort of snowballed from there. I tried learning it and I didn't do it properly and it took a while for me to get to a decent level," Ouellette explained. "I always have a need to learn and the amount of content that existed just keep giving me more and more inspiration."
While Ouellette said he got his start through watching beatbox videos on social media, as time went on he also became involved with the beatbox community online. That's when he started to develop in earnest as fellow beatboxers were able to give him tips and pointers on how to improve his sound.
From them, Ouellette learned the fundamental sounds of beatboxing which are simply called the basics. They include B a sound that mimics a kick drum, T which mimics a high hat and K which mimics a snare drum.
"For the B kick, we just say the letter B. That's the thing with a lot of our percussion, we name it after how it's pronounced," Ouellette explained. "The high hat or the T is of course made with your tongue and the K is the same way you'd pronounce a K with the back of your tongue."
Ouellette said he is what's known in the community as a "bass nerd" and is capable of making 40 different bass sounds with his vocal anatomy. He has also learned the names of all the muscles in his throat and how best to use each of them to create the desired sound.
"The best part is people's reactions to it. People's reactions to you creating an inhuman sound or mimicking a whole drum set with no instruments, synths or computers," Ouellette remarked.
The most challenging aspect of beatboxing for Ouellette has been the mentality. He noted it can be hard to get out of the mindset of "I will never learn this" but he has found that anyone can learn the sounds that makeup beatboxing.
"Everyone can learn pretty much all sounds. A couple are more anatomy-based based but everyone can learn every sound. You just need to break out of the mindset that you won't learn the sound," Ouellette said.
In that spirit this year Ouellette founded the PSO Beatbox Club to try and introduce his love of beatboxing to others. While attendance has been sporadic Ouellette said he has one semi-regular club member attending and hopes to see that number grow before the end of the school year.
Ouellette noted that there is a small community of beatboxers throughout B.C. and that most of them are down on the coast. He is, as far as he knows, the only one in the Cariboo who does beatboxing to this degree but would love to help teach new beatboxers.
"I just want to grow the club and grow the community up here and make B.C. one of the bigger places (for beatboxing)," Ouellette said. "You don't have to be overly shy about it. (Beatboxing) is fully inclusive and the community is one of the most open I've ever seen. Everyone's shy and everyone knows everyone is shy but once you start you get more confident and comfortable and you can do every sound we can do. There's nothing stopping you besides getting started."
Anyone interested in learning how to beatbox is welcome to contact Ouellette at outletcolby@gmail.com to arrange a lesson or demonstration. He said he is happy to offer lessons free of charge.
"Don't be afraid to come up to me. If you're curious or even want to hear it I probably will (demonstrate)," Ouellette remarked.
