[Music]
Dex Fondulac hi hi guys I’m here after
lunch entertainment I started beatboxing
at the age of 12 because I was deeply in
love with the television show American
Idol and there was a contestant named
Blake Lewis who is known for infusing I
see some nods I like that Idol fans who
was known for infusing beatboxing into
his performances and like any middle
schooler I wanted to be cool so what
better way to be cool than to learn how
to make drum noises with your mouth I
was a strange child
I’m largely self-taught so to start I
just started by emulating what other
beatboxers did and tried to go from
there so after over some time I mastered
the three basic sounds the kick drum the
hi-hat and the snare
however this useless talent of mine was
often discouraged by people who thought
it was annoying or I was 12 so or
thought I had way too much time on my
hands if that’s how I was spending it
and I heard hear these phrases thrown
around a lot hidden talent useless
talent and the two are almost synonymous
to me because if you have a hidden
talent it’s probably hidden because you
think it has no real-life application to
what you’re doing whatsoever as a grad
student who spends a fair amount of time
doing research I started preparations
for this talk by doing a literature
review of sorts of other TED Talks and
of course I found so many about
beatboxing found three however two of
those three have over 12 million views
so like
representing pretty well which makes me
really nervous I’ve gotten used to being
intrigued by a diverse range of almost
obscure topics by trade I’m a master
student about a year away becoming from
becoming thousands of dollars in debt
and a certified therapeutic recreation
specialist which can be a terribly
difficult thing to explain concisely
when I’m inevitably asked so what does
that mean for me it means that I promote
the enhancement of quality of life and
healing through the therapeutic use of
animals particularly horses music and
other alternative therapies that use
leisure and Recreation to create a space
for vulnerability and creativity for
people from all walks of life so some of
the topics of other beatboxing TED talks
that I discovered were basic beatboxing
101 lessons with the audience what the
power of the human voices lessons and
loop pedals and the origins of
beatboxing in Brooklyn in the 1980s so
like any good researcher I intend to
build on that something I picked up
along the way I was finally able to find
a home for the drum inside my body
during my junior year of college I went
to the University of Kentucky go cats
for my undergrad and there was a
all-girls acapella group called pause
and listen however in order to audition
for the group you had to be a part of
the university women’s choir now I sang
but not I’ve never been classically
trained or anything like that
and one of my good friends was the
president of the choir at the time and
so she encouraged me to join in audition
I said I want to be surrounded by all
these vocal powerhouses and thanks but
no thanks
but for some reason after the first day
of class I was literally on my way back
to my apartment and decided to turn
around and sign up to audition for
someone who’d been given the whole
upperclassman speech of I just have so
many regrets they didn’t try different
things in college so my biggest piece of
advice for you would be to just go for
it
I don’t know why but that was like a
surefire way to get me to do things an
undergrad like I was going to miss out
on some life-changing event by not going
to the Student Activity Board luau
I don’t know so a week later I showed up
to audition and I was terrified and my
fear quickly turned into awkward
laughter at being fawned over see I
guess the group had been struggling to
find someone to beatbox and so when this
all 4 foot 11 of me showed up already
knowing how yes that’s how tall I am
y’all I’ve never felt so special in my
entire life like you know the movie
franchise pitch perfect I got to be
there Anna Kendrick and any way that I
can be more like Anna Kendrick is a huge
win for me it was amazing and yet
despite being a part of this group and
helping them achieve the most success
they’d ever had competing at icc a’s yes
like the competition and pitch-perfect
having our competition pieces arranged
by Rob Dietz who worked as a vocal
arranger on the TV show The Sing Off
which is where pentatonix came from and
also where pauses brother group the
acoustikats competed we have an EP on
Spotify we got to perform all around
Kentucky and out of state we got to
perform with a high school acapella
group who’s won numerous awards called
one voice one time someone even asked me
for my autograph and I’ve never been
married or I don’t have kids so I can
honestly still say that that’s like the
peak moment of my life sorry kids but
throughout all that still the biggest
question that I got was well how are you
even gonna use that after college I
don’t know it just seems like a big
waste of time to me
and I hated hearing that for two reasons
one because people were overwhelmingly
under the assumption that there was no
possible way that I could use it after
college joke’s on you guys
and two because I didn’t even know was
this just some useless talent that I’d
found a way to make extremely marketable
for a very short period of time and when
it was up I’d just be the adult looking
back on her college acapella glory days
I didn’t want that now I don’t know what
you’re useless or hidden talent is or
maybe it is a more marketable skill that
you have but you just haven’t found a
way to incorporate it into your daily
life yet because you think it’s
impractical or you don’t think you’re
good enough this summer I had the
pleasure of working with youth with
disabilities at an organization in my
hometown it was my last day yesterday so
of course I was crying all day but one
of the surefire ways to improve the
clients mood sometimes was by beatboxing
and I taught a ton of them how to
beatbox and the basic beatboxing sounds
and you would be amazed at how much
better some of them were than my
co-workers who tried and yeah they made
them look really bad and the academic in
me wants to say like that’s great and
all but you don’t have any empirical
evidence on that or anything no not yet
not yet but the thing is beatboxing has
been used as therapeutic intervention
all around the world and I feel like
we’re onto something here
so there’s a place in New York City
called beat global which uses beatboxing
breakdancing songwriting and music
production as a way to empower
underserved youth South Thames cleft
service in London uses beatboxing as a
speech therapy intervention to help
individuals with cleft lip and cleft
palate improve their speech abilities
Lavelle school for the blind and Perkins
School for the Blind in Massachusetts
and in the Bronx each use global
interventions to help individuals who
are visually impaired with their
self-esteem
so it can be used now I’m getting used
to being intrigued by a wide array of
topics as I mentioned earlier I also am
a horse lover and another thing that
I’ve gotten very involved in doing is
equine-facilitated therapy which
basically is just the use of therapeutic
use of horseback riding and horses I
always say that I’m the horse girl that
you knew in elementary school but
evolved into her final form and for the
longest time I wanted to use horses and
how they’d changed my life as something
that I could use going forward and when
I was in high school my high school
guidance counselor told me oh you have
too much potential to do that you should
be a doctor or a vet or something since
you like animals which that’s just like
a whole lot to unpack there but so I had
resigned myself to thinking that equine
therapy was just a pipe dream or
something impractical even though it was
something that I’d wanted to do since I
was a teenager see I had an eating
disorder in high school and one of the
most therapeutic things for me was being
around my horse Gracie and how much she
changed my life just by being around her
and so I wanted to use that going
forward to help people like me and now
almost 10 years later I think after high
school I’m able to do that I’m in the
process of becoming certified through
two amazing programs in La Crosse where
I live and they’ve welcomed me with open
arms I’m well aware that I march to the
beat of my own drum in my case I make
the drum myself and I have found that in
the most seemingly trivial situations is
where we can be at our best I mean look
at me I’m a beat boxer for some people
it doesn’t get more trivial than making
drum noises with your mouth or walking
down UK’s campus sidewalk and deciding
to turn around or bringing my clients
out to meet my horse Gracie and watching
us this 900 pound animal is so gentle
with these kids and having one of your
clients come up to you and after just
getting to be around a horse and brush
them and love them that it was one of
the best experiences of their life we’re
calming down an agitated child just by
beatboxing for them and making them
smile you know what acapella music
sounds like with without a base or a
beatboxer it can be good but it’s that
much easier to get off tempo to not
build the peace can be the heartbeat of
the music so when people ask me now how
can I use beatboxing how can I possibly
use such a useless talent I have an
answer now and one that I’m proud of
you’re useless talents aren’t as useless
as you might think they are for example
my best friend Caroline I send the crowd
shoutout to you girl used to be a
competitive figure skater and she was
really good not like Olympic level but
still very high level but you know she
didn’t make it to the Olympics it wasn’t
that just like 15 years of her life
wasted no no it’s not
I want to make that clear no no she’s
going to make an amazing coach and she
already does and just like I’ve gotten
to see myself become so resurgent about
using my love of horses and beatboxing
in my future career I’ve gotten to see
her rediscover her love of skating and
get to use that going forward as a coach
and maybe in other capacities I mean she
flings herself around on blades that’s
way more hardcore than beatboxing or
someone else I knew in college was
really good at that Cup in ball game
candana
kendama and he can do all sorts of
tricks with it like competes has
sponsors has his own kendama line like
who does that that’s amazing Mark Twain
once said name the greatest of all
inventors accident and I’m sure you guys
have heard by now that some of the
greatest inventions in the world were
created by accident and those things
would never have been created had
whoever invented them was only seeing
them in this one specific way that they
could be as useless serve mistakes I
believe that no talents or strengths or
skills are useless I believe that we
only need to allow ourselves the
creativity and freedom to use them
however simple or involved that may be for you thank you
Dex Fondulac hi hi guys I’m here after
lunch entertainment I started beatboxing
at the age of 12 because I was deeply in
love with the television show American
Idol and there was a contestant named
Blake Lewis who is known for infusing I
see some nods I like that Idol fans who
was known for infusing beatboxing into
his performances and like any middle
schooler I wanted to be cool so what
better way to be cool than to learn how
to make drum noises with your mouth I
was a strange child
I’m largely self-taught so to start I
just started by emulating what other
beatboxers did and tried to go from
there so after over some time I mastered
the three basic sounds the kick drum the
hi-hat and the snare
however this useless talent of mine was
often discouraged by people who thought
it was annoying or I was 12 so or
thought I had way too much time on my
hands if that’s how I was spending it
and I heard hear these phrases thrown
around a lot hidden talent useless
talent and the two are almost synonymous
to me because if you have a hidden
talent it’s probably hidden because you
think it has no real-life application to
what you’re doing whatsoever as a grad
student who spends a fair amount of time
doing research I started preparations
for this talk by doing a literature
review of sorts of other TED Talks and
of course I found so many about
beatboxing found three however two of
those three have over 12 million views
so like
representing pretty well which makes me
really nervous I’ve gotten used to being
intrigued by a diverse range of almost
obscure topics by trade I’m a master
student about a year away becoming from
becoming thousands of dollars in debt
and a certified therapeutic recreation
specialist which can be a terribly
difficult thing to explain concisely
when I’m inevitably asked so what does
that mean for me it means that I promote
the enhancement of quality of life and
healing through the therapeutic use of
animals particularly horses music and
other alternative therapies that use
leisure and Recreation to create a space
for vulnerability and creativity for
people from all walks of life so some of
the topics of other beatboxing TED talks
that I discovered were basic beatboxing
101 lessons with the audience what the
power of the human voices lessons and
loop pedals and the origins of
beatboxing in Brooklyn in the 1980s so
like any good researcher I intend to
build on that something I picked up
along the way I was finally able to find
a home for the drum inside my body
during my junior year of college I went
to the University of Kentucky go cats
for my undergrad and there was a
all-girls acapella group called pause
and listen however in order to audition
for the group you had to be a part of
the university women’s choir now I sang
but not I’ve never been classically
trained or anything like that
and one of my good friends was the
president of the choir at the time and
so she encouraged me to join in audition
I said I want to be surrounded by all
these vocal powerhouses and thanks but
no thanks
but for some reason after the first day
of class I was literally on my way back
to my apartment and decided to turn
around and sign up to audition for
someone who’d been given the whole
upperclassman speech of I just have so
many regrets they didn’t try different
things in college so my biggest piece of
advice for you would be to just go for
it
I don’t know why but that was like a
surefire way to get me to do things an
undergrad like I was going to miss out
on some life-changing event by not going
to the Student Activity Board luau
I don’t know so a week later I showed up
to audition and I was terrified and my
fear quickly turned into awkward
laughter at being fawned over see I
guess the group had been struggling to
find someone to beatbox and so when this
all 4 foot 11 of me showed up already
knowing how yes that’s how tall I am
y’all I’ve never felt so special in my
entire life like you know the movie
franchise pitch perfect I got to be
there Anna Kendrick and any way that I
can be more like Anna Kendrick is a huge
win for me it was amazing and yet
despite being a part of this group and
helping them achieve the most success
they’d ever had competing at icc a’s yes
like the competition and pitch-perfect
having our competition pieces arranged
by Rob Dietz who worked as a vocal
arranger on the TV show The Sing Off
which is where pentatonix came from and
also where pauses brother group the
acoustikats competed we have an EP on
Spotify we got to perform all around
Kentucky and out of state we got to
perform with a high school acapella
group who’s won numerous awards called
one voice one time someone even asked me
for my autograph and I’ve never been
married or I don’t have kids so I can
honestly still say that that’s like the
peak moment of my life sorry kids but
throughout all that still the biggest
question that I got was well how are you
even gonna use that after college I
don’t know it just seems like a big
waste of time to me
and I hated hearing that for two reasons
one because people were overwhelmingly
under the assumption that there was no
possible way that I could use it after
college joke’s on you guys
and two because I didn’t even know was
this just some useless talent that I’d
found a way to make extremely marketable
for a very short period of time and when
it was up I’d just be the adult looking
back on her college acapella glory days
I didn’t want that now I don’t know what
you’re useless or hidden talent is or
maybe it is a more marketable skill that
you have but you just haven’t found a
way to incorporate it into your daily
life yet because you think it’s
impractical or you don’t think you’re
good enough this summer I had the
pleasure of working with youth with
disabilities at an organization in my
hometown it was my last day yesterday so
of course I was crying all day but one
of the surefire ways to improve the
clients mood sometimes was by beatboxing
and I taught a ton of them how to
beatbox and the basic beatboxing sounds
and you would be amazed at how much
better some of them were than my
co-workers who tried and yeah they made
them look really bad and the academic in
me wants to say like that’s great and
all but you don’t have any empirical
evidence on that or anything no not yet
not yet but the thing is beatboxing has
been used as therapeutic intervention
all around the world and I feel like
we’re onto something here
so there’s a place in New York City
called beat global which uses beatboxing
breakdancing songwriting and music
production as a way to empower
underserved youth South Thames cleft
service in London uses beatboxing as a
speech therapy intervention to help
individuals with cleft lip and cleft
palate improve their speech abilities
Lavelle school for the blind and Perkins
School for the Blind in Massachusetts
and in the Bronx each use global
interventions to help individuals who
are visually impaired with their
self-esteem
so it can be used now I’m getting used
to being intrigued by a wide array of
topics as I mentioned earlier I also am
a horse lover and another thing that
I’ve gotten very involved in doing is
equine-facilitated therapy which
basically is just the use of therapeutic
use of horseback riding and horses I
always say that I’m the horse girl that
you knew in elementary school but
evolved into her final form and for the
longest time I wanted to use horses and
how they’d changed my life as something
that I could use going forward and when
I was in high school my high school
guidance counselor told me oh you have
too much potential to do that you should
be a doctor or a vet or something since
you like animals which that’s just like
a whole lot to unpack there but so I had
resigned myself to thinking that equine
therapy was just a pipe dream or
something impractical even though it was
something that I’d wanted to do since I
was a teenager see I had an eating
disorder in high school and one of the
most therapeutic things for me was being
around my horse Gracie and how much she
changed my life just by being around her
and so I wanted to use that going
forward to help people like me and now
almost 10 years later I think after high
school I’m able to do that I’m in the
process of becoming certified through
two amazing programs in La Crosse where
I live and they’ve welcomed me with open
arms I’m well aware that I march to the
beat of my own drum in my case I make
the drum myself and I have found that in
the most seemingly trivial situations is
where we can be at our best I mean look
at me I’m a beat boxer for some people
it doesn’t get more trivial than making
drum noises with your mouth or walking
down UK’s campus sidewalk and deciding
to turn around or bringing my clients
out to meet my horse Gracie and watching
us this 900 pound animal is so gentle
with these kids and having one of your
clients come up to you and after just
getting to be around a horse and brush
them and love them that it was one of
the best experiences of their life we’re
calming down an agitated child just by
beatboxing for them and making them
smile you know what acapella music
sounds like with without a base or a
beatboxer it can be good but it’s that
much easier to get off tempo to not
build the peace can be the heartbeat of
the music so when people ask me now how
can I use beatboxing how can I possibly
use such a useless talent I have an
answer now and one that I’m proud of
you’re useless talents aren’t as useless
as you might think they are for example
my best friend Caroline I send the crowd
shoutout to you girl used to be a
competitive figure skater and she was
really good not like Olympic level but
still very high level but you know she
didn’t make it to the Olympics it wasn’t
that just like 15 years of her life
wasted no no it’s not
I want to make that clear no no she’s
going to make an amazing coach and she
already does and just like I’ve gotten
to see myself become so resurgent about
using my love of horses and beatboxing
in my future career I’ve gotten to see
her rediscover her love of skating and
get to use that going forward as a coach
and maybe in other capacities I mean she
flings herself around on blades that’s
way more hardcore than beatboxing or
someone else I knew in college was
really good at that Cup in ball game
candana
kendama and he can do all sorts of
tricks with it like competes has
sponsors has his own kendama line like
who does that that’s amazing Mark Twain
once said name the greatest of all
inventors accident and I’m sure you guys
have heard by now that some of the
greatest inventions in the world were
created by accident and those things
would never have been created had
whoever invented them was only seeing
them in this one specific way that they
could be as useless serve mistakes I
believe that no talents or strengths or
skills are useless I believe that we
only need to allow ourselves the
creativity and freedom to use them
however simple or involved that may be for you thank you
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