{"id":67745,"date":"2019-10-04T17:15:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T21:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=67745"},"modified":"2019-12-20T10:48:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T15:48:28","slug":"the-rhythm-book-rhythmic-development-and-performance-in-4-4-by-rory-stuart-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/the-rhythm-book-rhythmic-development-and-performance-in-4-4-by-rory-stuart-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rhythm Book-Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4 by Rory Stuart Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, I am reviewing “The Rhythm Book-Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4” by Rory Stuart that is published by Rhythm & Dues.\u00a0 Rory Stuart<\/a> has written a great beginning book for those of you who want to understand rhythm and notation in a deeper way that I reviewed<\/a> as well as an intermediate book of more advanced concepts<\/a> that I also have reviewed.\u00a0 Today I will be writing about The Rhythm Book-Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4.\u00a0 I just spent the last couple hours working through the book and am very impressed.<\/p>\n

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\nTHE RHYTHM BOOK \u2013 Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4<\/a>\"\"
\nRory Stuart’s Rhythm Book website<\/a> has this page about who the book would be good for which I thought would be great to include here also: (There is also an extensive preview of the book here<\/a> that you can check out)<\/p>\n

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THE RHYTHM BOOK \u2013 Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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This book is for you if:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You have completed\u00a0THE RHYTHM BOOK\u2014Beginning Notation and Sight-Reading\u00a0and\u00a0THE RHYTHM BOOK\u2014 Intermediate Notation and Sight-Reading; or you have enough command of rhythmic notation that it is not an obstacle.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You want to learn rhythmic concepts and practices and how to apply them in performance.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You are any age, an adult or young learner.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You are a vocalist, or play any instrument (including horns, piano, guitar, bass, strings \u2014 NOT just drums and percussion instruments!). This book, and the following ones in the series, are unusual in showing how rhythmic ideas connect to harmony and song form.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You are taking music classes, studying with a private instructor, or are teaching yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You are a music teacher, who wants to teach rhythmic ideas to your students.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You compose or would like to compose music, or write arrangements for others, and would like to incorporate rhythmic development, and greater awareness of rhythmic styles and interaction in 4\/4.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 You play or want to play any style of music. This book has somewhat of an orientation towards jazz and contemporary music (funk, pop, rock, hip-hop, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, modern classical) and includes the syncopation found in these styles of music and the swing feel of jazz. If you are an aspiring musician in a different style (e.g. folk, singer-songwriter, pre-20th century classical), you can learn what you need to know about rhythm, but the book includes some \u201cextra\u201d rhythmic things not usually found in your style of music.<\/em><\/p>\n

Please note: once you have completed this book, you will be ready for the next book in\u00a0THE RHYTHM BOOK\u00a0series:\u00a0THE RHYTHM BOOK\u2014Crossrhythms on 4\/4. From there, you can proceed to two other books in the series:\u00a0THE RHYTHM BOOK\u2014Odd Meters and Changing Meters; and\u00a0THE RHYTHM BOOK\u2014Superimposition and Subdivision, Metric Modulation, Feel Modulation and Displacement.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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The Rhythm Book Series by Rory Stuart<\/a><\/p>\n

Although this book is advertised as a follow up to “The Rhythm Book-Intermediate Notation and Sight-Reading, I would say it is a much more conceptual book than the prior books.\u00a0 Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4 takes a step back as Rory writes in depth on how to apply many of the rhythmic ideas learned in book 1 & 2 to different styles of music such as Swing and Brazillian grooves such as Sambas and Bossa Novas.\u00a0 The book also provides rhythmic examples over a host of other styles of music that I am unschooled in. Baiao, Frevo,\u00a0 Maracatu, Partido Alto, Capoeira, Calypso,\u00a0 as well as many others.<\/p>\n

The book comes with 67 audio samples of the exercises in the book that are invaluable and essential to a student studying this material in my opinion. There are many more written examples in the book that don’t have audio files and many of them look difficult rhythmically.\u00a0 I will say that I think it would be amazing to hear audio files of these examples as well.\u00a0 All of these audio samples and worksheets are available on the roryrhythmbooks.com<\/a> website for download after you purchase the book.<\/p>\n

The Rhythm Book-Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4 starts out with discussing a jazz “swing” feel.\u00a0 The importance of 2 & 4 is stressed as well as the art of accenting and ghost notes are discussed.\u00a0 Rory provides audio samples of jazz lines with accents on the downbeats, off beats and a mix of both that I found revealing to listen to as well.<\/p>\n

After the Swing section Rory delves into some Brazilian style rhythms.\u00a0 I love this quote from the beginning of this section of the book:<\/p>\n

“I seldom run across a jazz musician who, when a commonly played Antonio Carlos Jobim tune is called, replies “No, let’s not play that, I can’t play Brazilian music.”\u00a0 Yet, what many jazz musicians play, when they try to play a Brazilian piece, sounds like a sort of anemic wedding band-ish thing that has only the most superficial resemblance to real Brazilian music.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Haha!\u00a0 That quote above about sums it up!\u00a0 I used to play many of those Jobim standards after college and I honestly just played them as if I was playing jazz.\u00a0 Never really listened to authentic Brazilian music before that!\u00a0 I apologize to the Brazilian culture!<\/p>\n

After the section of the book on different styles, there is a section on Funk that is pretty cool. Rory gives many examples such as the bass line to James Brown’s Cold Sweat, Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life”, and tunes such as “Oakland Stroke” and “Squib Cakes” as well as many others as he talks about the rhythmic elements of funk music.<\/p>\n

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\nTHE RHYTHM BOOK \u2013 Rhythmic Development and Performance in 4\/4<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

After the Funk section, Rory writes on the topic of ballads.\u00a0 He touches a little bit on the ballad playing styles of Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Jim Hall, Miles Davis, etc……\u00a0 These are largely conceptual descriptions of their style and playing but Rory does include some written out music and phrases throughout.<\/p>\n

Much of the book after these sections is focused on practice suggestion and tips.\u00a0 Rory has included sections on:<\/p>\n