A Rhythmic Vocabulary: A Musician's Guide to Understanding and Improvising with Rhythm [Paperback]

Alan Dworsky (Author), Betsy Sansby (Author), Robert Jackson (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1997

A musician's guide to understanding and improvising with rhythm. This book is a road map to rhythm for any musician. It's for guitar players intrigued by the rhythms of world music. It's for keyboard players who've studied scales and chords and now want to study rhythm in a systematic way. It's for drummers, bass players, and sax players who want to groove and solo with a deeper understanding of rhythmic structure. Whatever your instrument, if you want to play funkier and don't mind using your head to do it, this book is for you. This step- by-step comprehensive course includes: hundreds of patterns drawn from African and Afro-Cuban rhythms explained and organized according to their structures; Rhythmic concepts and techniques you can use to create your own patterns; Bite-sized lessons arranged in order of difficulty; Easy-to-read charts that even non-musicians can under- stand; A CD that creates a realistic, three-dimensional rhythmic context for you to practice in; Exercises to reinforce your under- standing and help you build on what you're learning; and a chapter on rhythm walking--a fun way to create rhythms with your whole body while you walk.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alan Dworsky and his partner Betsy Sansby were born in the 1950s ten blocks away from each other in St. Paul, Minnesota. Thirty years later they got married adn they've been happily drumming together ever since. They are known for creating instructional books that are easy to follow and a pleasure to read. Their first book, Conga Drumming: A Beginner's Guide to Playing with Time, has become the best-selling book on hand drumming ever published. Their writing is warm and friendly, and they re passionate about clarity. They make sure students especially beginners get the right-size steps, in the right order, at just the right time. We don't just dump a pile of charts on you and leave, says Dworsky. We stay with you every step of the way, so you feel like you're getting private lessons. Betsy Sansby and her partner Alan Dworsky were born in the 1950s ten blocks away from each other in St. Paul, Minnesota. Thirty years later they got married and they ve been happily drumming together ever since. They are known for creating instructional books that are easy to follow and a pleasure to read. Their first book, Conga Drumming: A Beginner s Guide to Playing with Time, has become the best-selling book on hand drumming ever published. Their writing is warm and friendly, and they re passionate about clarity. They make sure students especially beginners get the right-size steps, in the right order, at just the right time. We don t just dump a pile of charts on you and leave, says Dworsky. We stay with you every step of the way, so you feel like you're getting private lessons. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Dancing Hands Music (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963880128
• ISBN-13: 978-0963880123
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,116,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the beginning there was Rhythm !, September 19, 1999

By 

Örn Leifsson (Reykjavik Iceland.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Rhythmic Vocabulary: A Musician's Guide to Understanding and Improvising with Rhythm (Paperback)

I think rhythm study is highly neglected in modern western music education, I studied piano for many years and of course you have to learn how to read rhythmic notation to be able to read music but there was no study of rhythm itself in all my studies. I felt a need to learn more about rhythm and I started to play the djembe and I certainly do not regret it, for apart from learning to play the djembe I have become a better pianist. This book is great to begin rhythm studies, I wish I had had this book many years ago, I highly recomend it for all musicians regardless of instrument because there is more to music than just melody and harmony, you have to have a good understanding of rhythm also.

But I want more,there are available tons of thick books about harmony but hardly anything about rhythm so I hope the author writes another book.

(I read somewhere that the late French composer Messiaen had compleated a big book about rhythm just before he died, I hope this is true and that it will be published soon).

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even if you aren't a drummer don't discount this one!, December 19, 2001

By 

R. Duarte "rob_d5974" (Clearwater, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Rhythmic Vocabulary: A Musician's Guide to Understanding and Improvising with Rhythm (Paperback)

As a bass player I'm always looking for ways to keep my grooves fresh. You always have to worry about falling ino the trap of laying out on the same rhythms all the time. This book will give you a kick in the pants though. As someone who has studied music at a college level, and knows how to read music I was concerned the charts would be a pain since I've known how to read music for years. However picking up on them was not confusing at all..and in fact it's very much tied into the way you count on regular notation and it's really not a problem. Afro-Cuban/Latin and African rhtyhms are the focus here but you can use this on anything. I found myself taking a latin rhythm and adding one note here or there, and changing the notes and turning it into a funk riff or something. I'm not nearly done working through this book..some of the exercises are a challenge, especially on a pitched instrument. However in the end they do serve to freshen up your grooves. I'm going to recommend this to all the rhythm players in my band. Thanks.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars musical notation, July 23, 2000

By 

Paul Hench - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Rhythmic Vocabulary: A Musician's Guide to Understanding and Improvising with Rhythm (Paperback)

I am finding this book very useful. It teaches important rhythmic concepts in very direct ways. The only thing that I question is the decision not to use standard musical notation. The book is supposed to be for musicians of all instruments: why not write the rhythms in a language that will be understood almost universally by musicians instead of creating a different system (which admittedly is fairly simple and visual)? By doing this, perhaps they are opening up their audience to some non-musicians, but at the risk of alienating the musicians the book was meant for.