Author: Snacky

While you are freestyling, slowly increase the tone or pitch of your voice until it’s as high as you can go, then slowly lower it until you can’t go any lower. Repeat. Take your time going from high to low and back again. When you’re comfortable going slow, try randomly jumping around to different tones while you freestyle.This is about pitch, not volume. Think of the low left and high right keys on a piano.

Pay attention to tones that are particularly easy or hard, which ones feel more natural. You might not know if you are a baritone, a tenor or a soprano, but some tones will sound better with your voice, and some will cut through the mix. Note how the different tones make you feel — a different tone can bring out a different personality.

Some people get stuck in a monotone voice. The object isn’t to sound like a police siren with your tone always going up and down, but rather to have control over it. Use tone to make your voice sound interesting and more natural, and to add expression to your delivery. Some higher or lower tones work better for different tracks, depending on the instrumentation.

While you are freestyling, have another MC control the mic volume, moving slowly or quickly, to different levels. You will have to pay attention and change the loudness of your voice and the proximity of the mic to your mouth to compensate and keep your sound at the same level though the speakers.

Some people are too loud on the mic, and some people are too quiet. Sometimes it’s because of poor mic-holding technique, but generally it’s a problem of not listening. This practice is all about listening to what you sound like and adjusting your volume accordingly. It can also help you to develop louder or quieter styles, and to expand your dynamic range. When you get up on the mic you can’t always expect a perfect sound level. Sometimes it’s a quiet (or broken) mic, or a bad sound setup, or sometimes you’re following a quiet MC and the mic is super hot. Without this skill, you’ll either not be heard, or your voice will sound too loud and annoying. Train to listen and respond with a good voice level every time.

While you’re freestyling, look someone right in the eyes the whole time. You can choose just one person to lock eyes with, or take turns locking eyes with each of your crew.

Sometimes this exercise can be intense, and make you feel a bit vulnerable and exposed, or break your usual flow. It can also open you up and can make your freestyle more engaging, particularly with the person you’re eye-to-eye with. Sometimes it can be difficult to look someone in the eyes and not freestyle about them or your interaction, so you can also practice looking someone in the eyes while maintaining a flow that’s not about them.

This practice teaches us how to remain present and engaged with our audience or others around us. A lot of MCs have a tendency to mentally turn inside and withdraw from the moment as they explore the freestyles they have within. But this breaks their engagement with the present moment, as well all the potential freestyle inspiration around them.

If you’re freestyling a lot, you’re going to hear some instrumental tracks many times, so you’ll need to be constantly finding new instrumental material to freestyle over. Finding instrumental tracks that you really like to freestyle over takes time. One of our favourite places is on Youtube. Try searching for the names of your favourite tracks with “instrumental” or “type beat” as an extra keyword. When you find tracks that you like, it’s a good idea to subscribe to the uploader’s channel to they automatically send you newly uploaded tracks to your inbox. We have a few instrumental playlists on our FFG website you can use. Another great place is SoundCloud where lots of independent music producers post their new tracks and love it when you freestyle over their work. You’ll probably find other websites and apps with good tracks. There’s so much new material being produced you’ll never get to hear it all. Some of these websites will ‘learn’ what you like and begin to recommend new instrumentals to you. You might discover whole new subgenres that you’ve never freestyled with (see “Different Beats”). Everyone has their own taste.

If you’re not usually the DJ at your FFG sessions, as an exercise, find and create a playlist of instrumental tracks to freestyle over. Then play them as a set for yourself and other freestyle MCs. If you’re always freestyling over a DJ or someone’s instrumental playlist, building a DJ set will broaden your skills, and help you appreciate the work they do. Everyone in your crew should have skill to build their own hour-long instrumental playlist, and DJ for an FFG session.

If you’re used to freestyling over a playlist, then try freestyling with a  experienced DJ who works with MCs. A good DJ can listen to your flow, anticipate and respond to your changes, and really create a conversation between the music and the freestyler. Your freestyle will inspire them, and in turn they will inspire you with new energy, and the synergy can turn a regular session into something epic. Ask your DJ friends if they’d like to play some tracks for a freestyle session.

Tech Setup: Set up a sound system with beats and a mic so you and your friends can freestyle. There are many different sound setups. For a typical setup you will need a mixer with at least 2 mic inputs. Inputs are usually 1⁄4 inch or XLR (three prong) inputs. For best results you want to use a grounded 1⁄4 inch input or an XLR. You will also need a stereo line input channel and a sound source. Usually your sound source connects to the mixer using 1/8″ to RCA cable. Your mixer will then connect to an amplifier or stereo and speakers that have good mid-range fidelity. This will improve your technical understanding of the sound system. (See sound setup).

A cypher is a circle of people freestyling, usually without gear. So get a cypher going with some other freestylers. Make the space, facilitate the cypher, keep it going smoothly. Make sure egos don’t get wack and keep the flow moving to new voices. To start a circle you need to be extra bold and project your energy and intention into a group of people. You will have to raise your voice and make your intentions clear. You have to be willing to be the first to freestyle, and encourage someone to follow you.

If you’ve always freestyled with your friends either in cypher or in studio, you might be used to an environment that’s ready to go: the sound gear is setup or the cypher is already hot, so all you have to do is start freestyling. You also need to be able to be a self-starter, so you can setup your freestyle environment if your friends aren’t around. Get your friend to show you how to set up the sound gear. Watch how others start a cypher. Your friends will be happy that you are helping them get things started, and you’ll learn some things that will help your freestyle technique.

Take turns freestyling in a whisper voice.

There are actually two kinds of whisper: a very quiet vocalized whisper, and a non-vocalized air whisper. In the vocalized whisper, you are still making sound with your vocal chords, but keeping it as quiet as you can. There’s a tendency to forget the point of this exercise when you get excited, and slowly increase the volume, so be careful. The vocalized whisper is easier to understand. The air whisper sound is made using the breath alone with only your mouth shaping the sound. It sounds more like a true whisper, but the words are harder to understand. The sound is all sibilance — that sort of hissing sound — which can be tricky to work well with a mic. Both styles can be useful, and some people will be better at one than the other.

This practice will develop your awareness of mic dynamics, taking note of and controlling your mic volume. It can help some people understand that they can be too loud on the mic. People who are too quiet most of the time might also benefit as they realize their normal style is actually a whisper. This practice also helps with clarity and enunciation, because if you can be understood in a whisper, you are probably articulating your words well. Whisper style can be effectively used for dramatic effect.

Turn the gain down on your microphone, or hold it farther away from your mouth. Freestyle as loud as you can, like you are yelling in a crowded room. It’s not that easy and it’s a real workout for your diaphragm. Make sure you don’t go too loud or use a raspy tone. Be careful to protect your voice.

There’s a few different ways to shout-style. Some people naturally use an angry-shout mode, but you don’t need to sound mad when you are shouting; you can also be happy, excited or just authoritative. You will have to use different techniques with this style. It’s usually better to use simpler rhythms and shorter phrases that you can really belt out.

Some people are naturally very good at this. The physical workout will help your freestyling all over, and the practice could come in useful at times when the mic is broken or the room is loud. Another practice for your mic technique is using shout-style but not actually increasing your volume over the PA by remembering to move the mic away from your mouth when your volume is loud (see “Mic Dynamics”). Some people really express a different personality using shout-style!

Find a rhyming dictionary, flip to different pages and look at the entries while you freestyle. You’ll find yourself adding a dozen rhyming words to a single line, and it will remind you of words you may have forgotten or never think of while you’re on the mic.

It’s easy to get stuck into always using the same few dozen words in key places when you freestyle, or get stuck always using the same rhyme even when you know there’s a better word out there. It can be like a lyrical cul-de-sac. So it’s always a good idea to study rhyming dictionaries when you’re not on the mic; some of the best freestylers study them every day. Using a dictionary live, however, will definitely have you using some words you’ve never thought of using before.

Get a stopwatch or a clock and freestyle while watching the clock. Pass the mic when your time is up.

Make it quick: If you’ve got a lot of people in your session you need to keep the mic moving, so pick a short time frame. Some freestylers need a certain amount of time to really get their groove, so it’s good to practice short time limits and finish your bit in five, 10 or 20 seconds. Sometimes you only get one brief shot at the mic. No warmup, no second chance. So make it count.

Marathon: Look at a clock and pick an amount of time: five minutes, 30 minutes, one, two or eight hours. Don’t stop freestyling until your time limit is up. Then keep going!

Tag team: With two or more people you can take breaks while the others are freestyling, so as a group you can keep freestyling for a long time, passing off the mic. Try targets like two, four, eight or 12 hours.

Of course, it’s not necessarily how much you say, but how you say it. Nevertheless, pushing your freestyle limit is a good skill to have if you’re on the mic and your partner falls of the stage, or if you’re on the stage with a lot of MCs.

One world record freestyle was over nine hours, held by MC Chiddy Bang who beat out former title champ M-Eighty. Everybody should try to go nonstop for at least 30 minutes. You can break for as long as it takes to take a drink of water, about three seconds. One of the amazing things about this practice is that after a while you get too tired or too bored to think about how you are freestyling, and another part of your brain takes over and just keeps going. At this point you start to attain a kind of freestyle nirvana. Amazing words just flow out of you when while your fatigued mind becomes relaxed and peaceful. You’ll wish you could always be like this. If you start to falter, just relax, and keep it flowing!