Rhythmic Improvisation

Can you take a few notes of a musical theme, speed it up, slow it down, juggle its parts, and build to a climax, all without disturbing the tempo and meter? This is what the classical musicians of India do, and you can do it too in jazz, rock or any music that maintains meters of fixed length, such as 4-bar phrases of 4/4 time.

The best rhythms grow by their own nature, seemingly oblivious to the meter, only to return by their own accord to the expected metric pattern of accents. The effect is a rise and fall of musical arousal, a “rhythmic resolution.” To an audience, a musician with this knowledge can zig-zag all over the meter and then return without skipping a beat. Two such musicians may seem to improvise in telepathic unison. And if you think that rhythmic mastery is limited to drummers, think again: any musician or dancer can apply these methods to their improvisation.

The text is particularly innovative in its presentation of polyrhythms as speed changes within a fixed tempo, using mechanical gears as a model. The final chapter is devoted to the tihai, an Indian rhythmic structure that serves as a natural ending and a final example of rhythmic resolution.

To make for easy steps, each lesson is learned first by reciting numbers, and then later by replacing the numbers with simple syllables (which enable faster recitation). Every lesson is accompanied by an audio-visual animation, showing you exactly how to recite the rhythm and clap the beats of the meter with moment-to-moment precision. Each chapter concludes with an Application section with review questions, suggestions and challenges.