1) The Rhythm Book by Peter Hampton Phillips
Rhythm is arguably the most important aspect of sight-reading. Often this area of music does not receive as much attention as it deserves either in private piano instruction or in general music education. In piano sight-reading, the temptation of ignoring rhythm in favor of note accuracy always lurks in the back of the pianist’s mind. What makes rhythm particularly difficult in piano music is that the notes playing at the same time often have different rhythms that are independent of each other.
The Rhythm Book is valuable in that it contains many exercises to develop a sense of rhythmic independence. The varied practice suggestions include a combination of counting, tapping, vocalizing, playing, and conducting. When you are doing two of these activities at once, as the book recommends, a coordination of rhythmic feeling and independence emerge. Although this book begins with the simplest of rhythms, the difficulty advances to much more complex rhythms. Anyone, especially those who have always struggled with rhythm will benefit and improve rhythmic timing from working with the material in The Rhythm Book.
2) Rhythmic Training by Robert Starer
In Rhythmic Training, distinguished composer Robert Starer develops a systematic presentation for mastering rhythm. Preliminary exercises begin with basic rhythms in an unmetered fashion before continuing with meter in Chapter 1. Once meter has been introduced, conducting patterns correlated with the time signatures are incorporated into the following exercises. A useful feature of this book is that the pulse is shown with steady rhythmic values under the main exercises consisting of more varied rhythms. This component aids the student in the mental counting and grouping of rhythmic patterns. Divisions and subdivisions of the beat become more complex rather quickly. Advanced material includes changing meters, unequal divisions of the beat, smaller rhythmic values, pulse changes, and polyrhythms. These topics are seldom found in instructional books, making this volume extremely valuable. If there is any downside to this book, it is that it is very concise and may not contain enough review and reinforcement for the average student. Still Rhythmic Training covers a lot of ground for a length of only 84 pages.
3) Elementary Training for Musicians by Paul Hindemith
Famous composer Paul Hindemith wrote this book in the 1940s as a textbook for the theory classes he taught at Yale. Although the title of this book uses the description of “elementary,” only the first two chapters are truly at this level. Many of the exercises are quite advanced.
The singing drills are presented without any solfege syllables that vocalists find familiar and contain melodies that do not always correspond to clear scalar patterns. The composer most likely intentionally wrote this way so that the student would be required to think exclusively in terms of intervals. However, a student well trained in solfege may challenged in adopting this new approach.
Equal in difficulty to the singing exercises are the rhythmic drills. The multitude of variants and subdivisions patterns may prove overwhelming to inexperienced readers. To gain adequate preparation, work through The Rhythmic Book by Peter Hampton Phillips and Rhythmic Training by Robert Starer before attempting the rhythmic sections in this book. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the student who takes the time to master the rhythmic exercises in this book would likely be able to accurately sight read almost any rhythm encountered.
For pianists the value of this book is in the coordinated action exercises. In these activities, playing one handed melodies while counting beats aloud helps maintain a steady beat and accurate rhythm. These examples also involve reading numerous ledger lines, skips, accidentals, and varied key signatures. Playing these drills develops the skills needed for sight-reading.
The challenges in Elementary Training for Musicians are best dealt with under the guidance of an experienced instructor. After using this book, general musicianship improves to a high level. Most importantly, overall music skills provide the foundation needed to learn sight-reading well so do not hesitate to work through any of the books suggested here.
Stay tuned for many more upcoming reviews of books, videos, articles, and links in future blogs.
Robert
Comments
Post a Comment