Transcripts
1. Rap Flow Skillshare intro edit: So my name is Pat. And in this course going to learn how to find your flow and voice for wrapping free styling and songwriting. And we're going to do this using a similar method that the legendary rapper Biggie Smalls used to get his amazing musical flow. First a little about me. I run the how to freestyle rap, a YouTube channel. My top video has over a million views. And I've been teaching people live how to freestyle since 2002. And I've been teaching people how to freestyle rap and write songs online since 2014. So one of the reasons I teach free styling is because it's the foundation for all songwriting for any type of genre of music. Improvisation and the ability to improvise words, flows, and melodies is very important for being able to write songs. So people say that writing songs is improvisation slowed down. So improvisation is a huge element in songwriting. Artists like Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Joey badass, Danny Brown. Artists from every genre all use improvise flows and melodies to be able to come up with their amazing songs. So that's why I teach free styling and that's why I feel like it's really important because it gives people an outlet. And I hope this course helps you feel more comfortable expressing yourself as well. So I made this course for other people like me who have a fire inside to express themselves through music, but are finding themselves stuck in their head overthinking and just blocked. So when I first started, I was experiencing a lot of analysis paralysis where I would overthink everything and never allow myself to ever try wrapping in front of person. I would try to write wraps that they had a boring flow and because it wasn't wrapping out loud, I didn't know if my raps were any good. It wasn't until I learned a freestyle and started wrapping out loud in front of people that I started to find my natural flow. So this course is designed to get you out of your head so you can find your natural flow as well and start being more comfortable being vocal over beats. And so you can write songs easier and also wrap a lot better, right? So here's a quick overview of what we're gonna do in this course. Flow is the most important element of wrapping in songwriting. If the flow isn't good, then nobody wants to hear your lyrics. Again, the Notorious BIG is known as a rap legend. He's an all your favorite rappers list of top five greatest rappers of all time. He was Jay-Z's mentor and helps coach Jay-Z to get to where he is now. And he was known for his amazing clean musical flow. Big he had a secret though, and the secret didn't come out until after he passed away. When he was 16, he met one of his neighbors, who was a jazz saxophonist named Donald Harrison big. He told him that he wrapped and asked him if he could help him with his music because at this time he had a big problem. He always had a bit of a speech impediment that kept him from wrapping totally clearly at the time. So big it would go over the Donald's house. And Donald would play famous classic jazz records and have big E practice scanning over the records, getting over the music. Even though big it was wrapping, Donald encouraged Biggie to treat his voice like another instrument. On top of the music. His voice was a saxophone or a guitar, and he had him scattered with the music to help them with this clarity and is flow. So if you don't know what scattering is, scattering is saying nonsensical things over a beat. It's basically using your voice as an instrument and just being vocal over beat, saying nonsense words like bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada. That's getting, any kind of noise over a beat is getting. So scattering is a great practice because it allows you to focus on coming up with flows and melodies without letting the lyrics get in the way. And this is why big is flow sounds, so music cool and clean. So in this course we're gonna do this same scattering practice only we're going to practice scanning over hip hop beats. Since most people watching this are interested in writing songs, singing and rapping and free styling over hip hop music. Today all pro wrappers and songwriters use scattering to lay out the foundation for the flow and melody of their songs. So this is why we're also going to be practicing scattering melodies as well. Again, this practice is going to help you create lyrics that sound clear and flow really well, and not all jumbled up like most new songwriters and rappers, it's really gonna help you get out of your head and into a creative zone. Thanks again for being here. I really hope you enjoy this course. Feel free to hit me up with any questions you have along the way. Let's get started with the exercises in the next video.
2. Rap Flow Exercise 1: BADA-DABA: All right, Welcome to the first exercise. This is going to be a very simple scattering exercise. And the scatter we're going to use is Jabba. Jabba, again, the sketch can be any words, any sounds, anything that's just nonsense, just to make it easier for you, we're going to use, but Jabba, Jabba, so what I want you to do is just repeat after me. I'm gonna go first and then you go. And the first practice is we're just gonna do the adiabat DOB over a four count beats. So I'm gonna play the beat to give an example. And then when I leave the bead on so that you can try as well right after me. Okay. All right. So this already during a barber head tilt to the four counts to a guy, 2, 3, 4. And now, now we're going to, now we're going to say bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada. Right now your turn is good to the same thing on the four count or the other. All right. So so go ahead. All right. Now we're going to have one more time together. Just do it along with me. Okay. I'm going to do a four count 1, 2, 3, 4, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada dollar. Okay, great. Narrowed it down to the next exercise. If you want to do the exercise again, you can do it as many times as you like, go back and do it. But now we're gonna get onto the next exercise and just keep on pushing our flow and skill. Or I'll see you in the next exercise.
3. Rap Flow Exercise 2: Experimental Flows: All right, Welcome to the next exercise. In this exercise, we're gonna do more experimental flows. So I'm gonna go first and then repeat after me. I was gonna do that back and forth. And then coming up, you're going to be free to do whatever flow you want. But right now, just kinda repeat after me and we'll just have fun with this experimental flow just to kinda help loosen you up a little bit. So I'm just gonna do a really weird experimental flow. And then what I want you to do is just repeat after me or to do that a couple times. All right, so I'm gonna go da-da-da, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada year terms. Dadadadada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada up. And I'm going to try and a flow get bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada. Your turn. Again. Out of, out of, out of a bad day. Your turn. Okay, great. Let's do one more. Let's do one more just for fun. Okay, just repeat after me, okay. But not adiabat DevOps. Devops. But dadadadada. But all right, Great job. Go into the next exercise that we're gonna have more fun with this. Alright, see you next one.
4. Rap Flow Exercise 3: Go Crazy: All right, so in this next video you're gonna do your own experimental float is coming up with your own flows. I'll go first and then you go, I'll give you time to go and just come up with any kind of flow you want, any kind of rhythm, any kind of flow, any kind of feeling that you want, just kind of do your own flow. I'm going to come up with a really experimental flow. And then you're gonna go come up with a really experimental flow. Okay? So it doesn't matter if it's fast or slow, whatever feels right to you. The first flow that comes out doesn't matter if it's slow, fast, on beat, offbeat. Go ahead and practice coming up with your own flow. And let's get started with that right now I'm gonna put on the beat. Adapt by the readable bad up ADAP adapter to buy divided about the bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada. Boom. Okay, so your turn, go ahead. Come up with any kind of flow that you want, any kind of Well, go ahead. Okay, cool. I'm going to come up with one more flow and then you're gonna go again, just come up with a different flow notes practice of different flow. Okay. So I'll go first. Yeah. But bada, bada, bada, bada, bop, bop, bop ADAP adapter. But it up adapt will do about daga daga, daga, daga daga, daga daga daga ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba da bomb. Okay, So your chart, so go ahead, scatter with the beat. Do any kind of flow you want. You can mess around with different sounds, whatever feels right for you. Just kind of like yourself to just go crazy over the VRI. It's your turn. Go ahead. All right, Great job. Let's go on to the next video. We'll do some more challenges, or I'll see you in the next video.
5. Rap Flow Exercise 4: Melodic Flow: All right, This is the last challenge for the flow section raft to this, we're gonna get into exercises to help you with your voice and flow and just combine how to strengthen your voice and flow together. For right now we're going to practice something that's very current. All the rafters are doing this. We're going to practice melody, adding melody to your flows. We're going to practice some melodic flows right now. I'm gonna go first and then you go okay? So what I want you to do is listen to my melody and then right after me, just repeat my melody in the space that I gave you over the beat to do the melody, just copy my melodies starting out right now, okay? Yeah. But, uh, your turn. Let's do it again. But our bada, bada, bada, your turn. Go ahead. Now a little more complicated. Bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada. Alright, so you're sorry, go ahead. Okay. Now we're gonna do a little more complicated. Remember you can go back and do his exercises again, we're just going to get a little more advanced with this guy. But bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada. The Teradata. But panorama. So you try go ahead. Price, I'm gonna do another melody and this repeat after me to do like a simple melody. Bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. You're turning that DDT. Ddt, ddt. The day. Okay, Great job. Now what I want you to do is kind of come up with your own melodies. I'm going to go first is coming and come up with a random melody. And then you're gonna go right after me. Okay, Let's do this. All right, here we go. Boom, boom, boom, bad apple. Grab your para tempo map. I didn't go. Or your turn. All right, Great job. So the big thing with this is just allowing your voice to be melodic, allowing her voice because it's, it's switching a different part of your brain, switching it to them part of your voice to allow your voice to be melodic. So great job. So go into the vocal training exercises. Now, we're going to further develop your flow and melodies altogether to help you be more comfortable at your flow and your voice. Alright, so I'll see you in the next section. All right, bye.
6. Rap Voice Exercise 1: Soft and Loud: Welcome to the voice section. Now we're going to do some exercises to help loosen up your voice and help you find your natural voice and flow. And we're going to do a lot of vocal experimentation in this section, and we're going to practice using our voice over different beats. So the first exercise we're going to do is call loud and soft. We're going to practice doing really soft scats and really loud scats. And I can't be too loud right now because later my house. But what I want you to do, do this exercise where you can be as loud as you want if you want to place right now and you want to do this, you can just copy the level that I do. You can just go from soft to normal. But ideally what you want to do is go to extremes, because these extremes will help you find your center. The further you go to these extremes with your voice, It's going to be easier to find your natural voice. All right, so let's get started. We're going to practice with a new beat and we're going to start out going really soft and then going loud. So here we go. So I'll go first and then you go after me on our Here we go. Hey, presto, you go now wrapped really soft dislike America assaults, really soft scats. Okay, So any kind of noise you want this really soft or I pseudo it. So go ahead. Now let's try a whisper. Hammer. That data. Now. Sounds. Now tamara, like Amara. Raja. Go idea was forever. For I know it's not going to be louder like that. A lot of talks about data, plan out our data, pop up dialogue, Alibaba, Parabola, Parabola, Parabola, Parabola. So go ahead and use a scattering noises and it kinda noisy want, and just go a little louder, right? So go ahead and not shorter. All right, great job was to go into the next video. We're going to keep playing with their voice until you experience that breakthrough where you start to feel more comfortable with your voice and your flow. All right, let's do that.
7. Rap Voice Exercise 2: High and Low: Alright, in this video we're going to do this same scattering over the same B. Only this time we're going to do low pitch and high pitch sounds. So a low pitches like blah-blah-blah, and high pitches like. So the more low you can go, and the more high you can go, the better the more extremes that you can do. And where you're going to break through your comfort zone and you're going to find your natural Rap voice. You'll notice like rappers like Eminem and Kendrick Lamar always changing their voice. Sometimes the replica woman, they're always changing their voice. And right now I'm gonna give you a practice where you can experience changing your own voice and playing with it over a beat, just like the pros do. Alright, so let's practice that right now over this B. Alright, so I'm gonna go first. I'm just gonna do a high pitch sound. So your turn and make a really high pitched noise and just kinda go over the beat and just experience or voice try to go as high pitches you can't. It's okay if it feels funny fills where the more weird and fun it feels the better, right? So go ahead and do that right now. Okay, Great job. This is totally okay for it to be fun in and fill layer. So now we're gonna go into the very low pitched voice. Okay, so if it's low, as we can call it, like tallow, the creator has a really low voice. All right, so we're going to try to practice rapping really low. Okay, so I'm gonna go first and then you go, guys, here we go. Well, my love of limbo, lot, volleyball, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. But enable market emitted. Hey, bom, bom, bom. By pressing your turn, go ahead, rat. Really in a really low voice, as low as you can, try to go as low as you can and just play with scattering with a really low voice. All right, go ahead. Okay, great job. And what you can do is go back and practice exercise again, try to get even weirder and weirder. The more weird you get, the more uncomfortable you feel wrapping, the better you're going to feel later on, the more confident in a more secure you're gonna feel in your rap voice coming up soon after we go through all these exercises. All right, so I hope you're starting to feel loosened up. Let's get onto the next exercise. We'll have a little more fun with our voice.
8. Rap Voice Exercise 3: Emotional Power: Alright, now in this exercise, we're going to practice putting a motion into our voice. We're going to practice being sad and angry. And also just to cool, just like no emotion is being super cool. So we're going to practice being sad first so that you can practice expressing emotion through your voice without even needing lyrics right now we're not letting the lyrics get in the way. We're just going to practice being emotional over the beat and just trying to let whatever we're feeling come out. It's okay if you feel like you're acting, making music, a lot of times is like acting, committing to a feeling for the song, right? So it's going to try to be emotional over the beaker. I'm going to go first. I'm going to take a sad flow, and then you're gonna go again. What's going to scat, whatever noise is you want. We're just going to try to put some emotion and some sadness into those scats. All right, Here we go. But not a lot of data about a bottom up, but I'm not putting enough money, but a lot of it, a database deliver. Sorry, I see your turn to price things in your sketch. Try to express some sad emotions into your sky right now, Go ahead. Okay, Great job. Now we're going to practice being angry over the beat. So there's an angry scared. Okay, So I'm gonna go first and then you go get some angry emotion. Parabola passport stamp, stamp that top arm. Not about trying to be angry with your voice in your field and try to put awesome angry feelings okay. For your acting. Just practicing, correct. Slow-motion, anterior scalp. So go ahead and do some angry, scary right now. All right. Great job. If you want to do his exercises again, if you want to have more time to do a poetry windings and do this again. But now we're going to try to be just two cores, going to just try to do a scaffolds to coal, try no motion or the silane back just to call, just wrapping this to call nor motion is not really caring about anything. Or I'm gonna do a two core flow first, then you map a lot about lot about a monocrop but a bad rap, but it happened about a month, did it flat but above that? But a lot of flap would have gotten a little bit flat. But at bada, bada, bada, bada, bada bing adapt bonus lab to boss, boss in a rapid minute. But it did not. Did it drop on Monday about but it's your turn, dear to cool scout, we don't really care about anything, site no emotions, whatever you feel. Go ahead. All right, great job. In the next exercise we'll have a little more fun to do, a little more fun challenge, and then you're almost done. We're almost done with these vocal exercises. I hope you're starting to feel loosened up. Let's go on to the next video.
9. Rap Voice Exercise 4: Get Weird: Alright, in this exercise, we're just gonna do some weird noises just to kind of break through your comfort zones to whatever kinda weird noises you want. And then the next exercise is going to be a melodic exercise, but this one is going to be all about just being weird, allowing yourself to make as weird noises as possible. Okay, So here we go. Yeah, we do about manipulatable, do we do inevitable, but it wouldn't be evaporated. B2b, does anybody want to beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty bit about mitigating beautiful manipulate. It would've been a really beautiful to Boston to do. But if people do pretty good, a proper epitope, people attributed a little bit about quite a bit of it, but I've opened it a MOOC, retributive, beautiful, bubbly buffoonery, millivolt, but a group of remote little bit about, about a bit of a double. And it wouldn't load it look too bored people to want to put a boo, boo, boo, boo, boo. You're trying to make some weird noises, will slow or fast, however you want to try to make some. It was a weird, as noisy as you can over the data, right? So go ahead your chart. Remember you're probably in the comfort of your own home BY is where as possible. Go ahead. All right. Great job at towards South and doing great. I continue on to the next video for our last exercise.
10. Rap Voice Exercise 5: Melody: All right, Welcome to the next exercise. This exercise is all about melody. We're going to practice our melodic flow, just kinda combine everything we've been learning and add melody can be as weird as you want. You can try to throw some melody in there, trying to some known melody, try to add some emotion. We're going to combine melody and emotion and weird sounds wherever you feel like. Just combined all these different elements and exercises that we've been doing into a melodic flow that you like. And you can go in and out of melody so that you can practice using different parts of your voice. All right, and this is really going to help you loosen up. So let's do this exercise right now. I'm gonna go first again and then you go, okay. Burn up or down. Deep in PBT, people may be new but an epic, empathic or that bottom paragraph or babbeuda Bono map or Obama and ABD Varelli of other every day. On table two. Per apple, titrated, rid of Apple would do battle with a purpose. You very remembered it as a new para, but ADP to pay, don't be Roboto do believe you do happen to be. But they paid a poverty. Poverty is a very powerful weber do a price. You're sorry, Go ahead. Just mess with any kind of flow you want. Just try to add some melody into your voice exercise right now. Go ahead. All right, great job in doing great. And I'll see you in the next video.
11. Student Requested To Hear Me Rap: To cancers meet more often. They don't speak. Starts for me. She pulled up above me again that need to exercise. You emphasized quite inviting, but our crumbling or eyes rains, the rain would have realized and stranger then I thought I tried to do with the knock and run and of course I got chopped, stop rid of my track to turn back and finds a right there standing and her doorway look in lovely and our night when I was like, Hey, there you go, walk up to that hilltop, can live with that. It's deliberate. Drop its octet shoots like how might the, why don't we just go out and not ha, I'm not cool, but that wasn't really my vision at all. You see, I had this whole plan to get out in the open air and land awakening, kiss upon your lips to make you mogul manage his eye contact has leaflet. That would never happen that you design thinking. We can know that never liked your mapping. In fact, when I see your face kid on HIV staff, that blanket, I've been calling me from inside yellow I think I'm going back in against their sleep with more denies, but they don't speak that keep it all inside one to size 30. Focus on the web from this one. Don't see it too acidic. Who gets this meet with more than ice, but they don't speak that keep it all inside. One decides to leave. Lucas and I went pro because one don't sleep. Hi, we'll find is what she is, although she doesn't know what he's listened to, what I want to still be sound to tell my mates about my mission than before they started distance to almost the opposite friction that just kept US on the good because a positively Lipman and what the kid and when I told them what I did but when they didn't believe but not that may be yeses which I'll buy perceive the situation which in a attire efficient. So what's called the run the phone like Listen, give too many times in the paths of every dance on and help f what I felt it just went end up filling pans, not knowing what did I make it let things happen, causes stress, and I still haven't figured out which men are misspent, just like That's right. I could these types of things either, but maybe if you act like you might have been that the labor, but today, I want to call on you and Michelle me never to cancel the receipt. No, I didn't eyes but they don't speak. They keep it all inside. One decides to leave on Coursera. We're proud because one don't suit. If to say to guess this week we're going to die. But they don't speak that keep it all inside. One decides to be focused on web product, ends up in the week and return to.
Pat Parra, Creator of Pro Rap Academy
