You've Got Rhythm: Read Music Better by Feeling the Beat Authors: Anna Dembska and Joan Harkness Publisher: Flying Leap Music, 2002. Website: www.fleap.com

Rhythm is at the heart of what musicians do, and rhythmic training is an essential part of a musician's development. Rhythmic exercises that involve some sort of tapping, conducting, or vocalization have long been a staple in many ear-training and musical rudiments courses, but they can often be tedious or boring. In their new book You've Got Rhythm , Anna Dembska and Joan Harkness have come up with a way of teaching rhythm which not only avoids boredom, but actually makes rhythmic training fun.

The Idea

You've Got Rhythm consists of a variety of texts set to unpitched rhythmic patterns ("Talking Music"). The "Talking Music" is performed while the students "slap-clap-tap" the underlying meter. The "slap-clap-tap" patterns promote the physical sensation of responding to underlying strong and weak metric accents. The book has several unique features:

1.  Carefully chosen, entertaining, educational, stimulating texts. The texts come from a range of sources, including original words by the authors, quotations from classic literature, recipes from early American cookbooks, biographical information about composers (Ives, Partch, Cage, Ruggles, Copland, and others), and poetry. The rhythm patterns are appropriate to the texts and complement them well.

Some of my favorites:

"New York Taxi Ride," by Joan Harkness, with a tempo of presto frenetico - changing meters of 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4, starts at the JFK airport and ends up in a seat at the Met with the words "Vissi d'arte!"

"The Ear," from Gray's Anatomy, 1901 - lots of 16th notes, rests, dots, in a 6/8 meter, combined with the anatomical vocabulary: hilarious!

"Advice from a Caterpillar," from Alice in Wonderland - the very last piece in the book, with changing meters of 3/4, 2/4, 5/8, 7/8, 4/4, and 6/8 -

"What size do you want to be?" it asked. "Oh, I'm not particular as to size," Alice hastily replied, "only one doesn't like changing so often you know." "I don't know," said the caterpillar.

The "slap-clap-tap" patterns help reinforce a feeling for meter both physically and audibly. This approach works particularly well in a group setting; if one individual gets off, the group can still maintain the basic meter.

The Process

After a brief explanation of how to use the book, rhythmic concepts are presented in a logical, gradual sequence. The concept of meter is introduced early, beginning with basic slap-clap-tap patterns set to counting patterns of 2, 3, and 4 beats. Simple texts such as days of the week follow, spoken in quarter note rhythms. New concepts such as rests, dots, ties, and syncopations are introduced gradually. By the end of the book, the "talking music" becomes quite sophisticated, with mixed and shifting meters, free use of tuplets, and dotted rhythms. Explanations and examples are clearly presented throughout the book.

As stated on its back cover, You've got Rhythm is suitable for students 9 years of age and older. Most of the texts require at least an upper elementary reading level. The authors' backgrounds in opera, vocal music, composing, and collaborative piano work are evident in the choice of texts and in the naturalness of the rhythmic settings. The patterns are often unpredictable and surprising, adding subtly to the humor or emphasizing the meaning and drama of the lyrics.

Rhythmic structures are introduced and explained in a logical and easy-to-understand manner. Particularly helpful are the explanations of how rhythmic patterns relate to the metric structure. Because much of the book is self-explanatory and the approach to performing the exercises is so consistent, not much verbal explanation is necessary, and the authors wisely avoid over-explaining.

Traditional approaches to "counting" rhythm are used sparingly, and only where necessary to clarify the structure or relationship of note patterns to the meter.