This collection presents the user with a series of increasingly difficult rhythms on a single pitch.
The rhythmic material in this series is organized into 10 difficulty levels. Each difficulty level contains four exercises in each of the following time signatures: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8. This gives exercises in 2, 3, and 4 beats per bar in both simple and compound meters. The first two exercises of each time signature have no ties while the remaining two exercises in each time signature include ties. In Book 1 of this series you'll find difficulty levels 1 to 5, while Book 2 completes the set with levels 6 to 10.
To curate the difficulty levels I looked at all of the possible ways we can use eighth-notes and sixteenth-notes to subdivide a single beat without the use of tuplets. The lowest difficulty level is comprised of the easiest of these one-beat rhythmic groupings. Subsequent difficulty levels include more challenging groupings while continuing to use the easier ones from previous chapters. In this way the difficulty levels are cumulative: level 1 uses only the easiest groupings, but by level 9, all of the possible rhythmic groupings have been introduced. Level 10 increases the density of challenging groupings by omitting the easier ones. The introductory page of each chapter introduces the rhythmic groupings that will be added or omitted in that chapter. On some occasions rhythmic groupings are respelled; however, these new spellings are not formally introduced at the beginning of the chapter.
The exercises in this collection are intentionally random and difficult to internalize. In keeping the rhythmic material as unpredictable as possible the door is left open for the materials to be used in many ways. It also forces the user to process every rhythm as its own event without relying on pattern recognition for help.
Some suggestions for how to use this book include:
- Practice sight-reading. The goal in practising sight-reading is not to learn the material but to develop the skill of reading new material. When practising sight-reading I encourage you to cycle through exercises quickly rather than mastering each one.
- Use a metronome! The most important thing you can do with this material is learn how to read these rhythms and play them in time.
- Advanced metronome work: Placing the metronome click on non-strong beats forces you to take responsibility for the time in a different way and trains you to hear how your rhythm relates to each subdivision of the beat. For example, instead of putting the metronome click on each quarter-note in 4/4, play the exercise with the metronome giving the second eighth note of each beat, or the last sixteenth note, or beats 2 and 4, or every third sixteenth note. Be creative with this one; the possibilities are limitless!
- Develop independence between hands by playing a repeating pattern in one hand while reading an exercise in the other. Expand on this by adding patterns in hands and feet while reading a rhythm with a remaining limb. This is a great exercise for drummers and percussionists but any instrumentalist could benefit from coordination practice.
- Use these rhythms to practice scales. Instead of playing scales in straight sixteenth-notes, try playing them in the rhythms given in these exercises.
- Write in sticking patterns, dynamics, accents, phrase marks, or other articulations for you or your students to practice. If you're not happy with the ties I included, feel free to add some of your own.
- Combine the above exercises in any way that you think will be beneficial to your practice.
As with any of the Dots and Beams books, the uses for this particular collection are limited only by the imagination of the musician using it. I encourage anybody using this book to find as many uses for these exercises as possible.
Dots and Beams: - Dots and Beams creates a wide variety of reading materials for musicians at all skill levels and for all instruments. The goal of Dots and Beams is to break music down into its elements and provide reading material focused on systematically developing each element in isolation. These books can be used in any number of ways and are an invaluable tool for creative musicians who enjoy inventing new exercises. In addition, these books make excellent, thoughtfully graduated sight-reading material for a wide range of ability levels from student to professional. How is Dots and Beams different? Many books of sight-reading materials are simply books of short compositions that range from easy to difficult. With this approach, after the first reading of each piece, the user is effectively no longer practising sight-reading but is instead learning a series of short pieces. While there is value in doing this, it is by definition not an exercise in sight-reading. Instead of providing a collection of short pieces, this book series provides reading material that is designed to require the user to process every single note and rhythm. These exercises are designed to be very difficult to memorize, impossible to predict, usable in any key, and flexible enough to be usable with many exercises beyond sight-reading. This allows the user to change the context and challenge level of the material depending on the exercise they are working on at any given moment. Each page can be used many times, in many different ways, and still feel fresh, new, and challenging. While other books spend a lot of time talking about reading music, Dots and Beams books focus more on providing an abundance of practice material. Each book has over 100 pages of exercises that are carefully graduated from easy to difficult. These books are a great tool for any musician and music educator, especially those who enjoy creating exercises to push themselves or their students to new levels.
Petitpas, Nathan: - Nathan Petitpas is a percussionist living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He works predominantly as a freelancer in the Ontario orchestral scene as well as the Toronto contemporary music scene. He teaches drum set, percussion, music theory, and general music classes in a variety of programs across Toronto. Nathan holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Music degree from Acadia University, both in percussion performance.
