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Any recommended rhythm books WITH CD?


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Posted

After reading about the sightreading thread, it reminded me of how I suck at reading rhythm (reading of the notes themselves are......ehhhhhhhh).

 

I know about one-e and-a two-e and a....

 

where I get screwed is dotted notes or notes that carry on for a beat plus a fraction of a beat, etc., and getting the measure with the "complicated" rhythm to work out to 4 beats (etc.).

 

I've seen some books on reading/counting rhythm, but not ones with accompanying cd's that play the beat for you when you're not sure if you did it right.

 

Without hearing the beat/melody, I don't think I'd do well by just reading a book and tapping my foot while saying one-e and a two-e....

 

I hope this makes sense!

 

Be happy to see online sites recommended as well.

 

mercy buckets!

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Posted

Well, The Berklee books Ear training and the Berklee Books 1,2,3 by William Leavitt address these issues. The rhythms aren't so much the issue, it's sheer boredom due to the fact that I have to listen to myself struggle with seemingly easy melodies, and play while not looking at my axe... Waaaaaa lol

 

Not really guitar related, but Benny Greb's 'Language of Drumming' has a pretty cool breakdown on rhythm practice...

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Posted

As said, drum books are great for this. Another book I have, which may be out of print is a book called "Golf clubs on fences I have known"... I think there are a few of them. It is published pretty low tech. One of them is intended to be clapped through and is only rhythms.

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Posted

 

Modern Reading Text in 4/4 by L.Bellson is the classic text on this topic.




I'm getting into You Can Ta Ka Di Mi This as a rhythm book, but it doesn't really address reading.

 

 

As always, I appreciate the help. I thought about getting the Modern Reading by Bellson, but again, I NEED something with an accompanying CD. I have to know if I got it right on my own or not!

 

If I had some sound examples, I could LOOK at the measure and HEAR the rhythm. Then, even if I couldn't figure of the rhythm I could learn to do it by combining the visual and aural so the next time I see a dotted whatever, I could remember what it's supposed to sound like!

 

If you look at page 3, the first example of the Bellson book, he gives an example of triplets where the middle triplet is a rest. No way I could count that out myself

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Posted

All quality advice. I'll add Troy Stetina's Rhythms for Metal Guitar...or some title like that. Good stuff, probably not as thorough as the other methods, but being guitar based the examples are cool

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Posted

As said, drum books are great for this. Another book I have, which may be out of print is a book called "Golf clubs on fences I have known"... I think there are a few of them. It is published pretty low tech. One of them is intended to be clapped through and is only rhythms.

 

Am I just stupid, or does the title of that book totally not relate to the subject matter? :confused:

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Posted

 

As always, I appreciate the help. I thought about getting the Modern Reading by Bellson, but again, I NEED something with an accompanying CD. I have to know if I got it right on my own or not!


If I had some sound examples, I could LOOK at the measure and HEAR the rhythm. Then, even if I couldn't figure of the rhythm I could learn to do it by combining the visual and aural so the next time I see a dotted whatever, I could remember what it's supposed to sound like!


If you look at page 3, the first example of the Bellson book, he gives an example of triplets where the middle triplet is a rest. No way I could count that out myself

 

 

I'll bust out my copy of the Bellson book and take a look at that page. Will get back to you afterwards, applying the following:

 

I learned from playing in community orchestra a simple "trick" for reading rhythms - it involves dividing up the measure into the smallest sized beat and counting accordingly. So if there were a dotted eighth and regular eight notes in a 4/4 measure, I'd count to 16 per measure.

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Posted

 

If you look at page 3, the first example of the Bellson book, he gives an example of triplets where the middle triplet is a rest. No way I could count that out myself

 

 

That is a swing feel example. All the examples on page 3 are how to play what is notated with swing feel. My teachers advised me to play the music with the literally-notated rhythm written first, before attempting to use swing feel. It does simplify the job quite a bit - once you get the basic notes and rhythm down, then you can add the swing feel.

 

Let's look at a bit more realistic example: Line 4 of page 13, last measure

 

The "smallest" note in that measure is a 16th. Therefore for that measure I would count up to 16 for the entire measure, when I am first learning the music. Of those 16 counts, a dotted 8th gets 3 counts, a 16th gets 1 count, a quarter note gets 4 counts, and a half note gets 2 counts. So that phrase in order:

 

The dotted eight would be 1-2-3.

The 16th following that would be 4.

The next 16th would be 5.

The next dotted 8th would be 6-7-8.

The quarter note would be 9-10-11-12

The next half note would be 13-14

The last half note, ending the measure would be 15-16

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Posted

thanks, girevik!


But I can't depend on having you (or anybody else) help me on every example. If I'm going to learn it, I gotta do it myself!


:wave:

 

Glad to be of some help.

 

Just wanted to add that the "1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a..." thing (which you mentioned in your first post) didn't work as well for me as simply counting from 1-16 if the smallest note was a 16th, 1-8 if the smallest note was an 8th, etc. Legendary bass educator Carol Kaye argued that the 1-and-... way of counting rhythms doesn't work - she wrote that in her books long before I learned the more straightforward counting system and realized why the 1-and-.. thing didn't work for me either.

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Posted

 

Glad to be of some help.


Just wanted to add that the "1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a..." thing (which you mentioned in your first post) didn't work as well for me as simply counting from 1-16 if the smallest note was a 16th, 1-8 if the smallest note was an 8th, etc. Legendary bass educator Carol Kaye argued that the 1-and-... way of counting rhythms doesn't work - she wrote that in her books long before I learned the more straightforward counting system and realized why the 1-and-.. thing didn't work for me either.

 

 

hmm, interesting! It's nice to think that it's not my fault!.

I'll give it a try!

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