On the screen, a grainy MRI scan of a human mouth shows a tongue, leaping and curling as a sound like a snare drum rings out. This is a beatboxer in action—viewed from a new perspective: inside her ...

You might think that beatboxing, with its harsh, high-energy percussive sounds, would be harder on the voice than the sweet song of a soprano. But according to new research by voice expert Dr. H.

Doug E. Fresh (shown above, performing at the Legends of Hip Hop Tour in February 2011) was a beatboxing pioneer in the 1980s. © Briana E. Heard/Corbis It is always ...