A couple of years ago, I had the chance to be given the latest album of the French singer Camille. Already hooked by her first two, it was with great expectations that I started listening to it. Entirely made with voices and body percussions, the result is an amazing music experience with no instrument. You can imagine how glad I was when I put the DVD included with the album in my computer for the first time.

This DVD was showing Camille herself doing one minute of each of her song using body percussions. That was the very first time I was exposed to it, and couldn’t believe how great the sound coming by simply claping, snaping or slaping yourself was.

Obviously I had to give it a try myself and started to learn how to reproduce one of my favourite song from her album “Home is where it hurts”. I then showed it to my friends who took it with great enthusiasm and wanted to learn and to share with everybody. It came to the point where we’ve done a demo inside the metro where everybody was smiling and started giving it a go..awesome!

Let’s get a bit more technical now.

Traditionally the four main body percussion sounds (in order from lowest pitch to highest in pitch) are:

1. Stomp: Stamping the feet against the floor or a resonant surface.
2. Patsch: patting either the left, right or both thighs with hands
3. Clapping hands together
4. Click: clicking with the thumb and middle fingers

However, there are numerous other possibilities include: hitting the chest, whistling, slapping or flicking the cheeks with an open mouth, clicking with the tongue against the roof of the mouth, grunting and hitting the buttocks.[2]

Variations of sound are possible through changing the playing technique. For example, clapping the hands in various positions will affect factors such as pitch and resonance.

Have a look at the videos below and you’ll see what I mean, I bet you’ll try to find a quiet spot to try it yourself right after.

Body Percussion from Thibaut RAS on Vimeo.