What Beatboxing Looks Like From Inside the Throat

The tonsil-twisting antics of a skilled beatboxer are pretty mysterious to most people who don’t regularly use their mouths as human drum machines. To show just what’s going on in there, one master beatboxer paid a visit to a laryngeal surgeon and had him film it, as Motherboard reports.

Tom Thrum, an Australian beatboxer, stuck a flexible camera up his nose and down toward his larynx, then put another camera in his mouth to see how the throat, tongue, and mouth work together to make different sounds. If you’re a little squeamish about medical procedures, it’s pretty gross. Thrum’s vocal cords look like the mouth of a really mucus-y kraken.

If you can get past the idea of watching someone get a camera stuck through their nose and back into their throat, though, it’s a rare look at just how the body parts we use all day function. Even if there is a lot of spit.

Now if only we could see inside the larynxes of this father-daughter beatboxing duo.

[h/t Motherboard]

Image Credit: INTERNET ARCHIVE BOOK IMAGES, Flickr // Public Domain