Advanced Rhythmic Concepts for Guitar; Foreword By Alex Machacek: (An in-depth study on Metric Modulation, Polyrhythms and Polymeters)

I finally have a book that teaches me Metric Modulations, Polyrhythms and Polymeters step by step!If you want a book that shows you from the very beginning what these concepts are all about, get this book. I bought two other books trying to find this information, and both times I felt like I wasted my money. One of the books just talked about rhythmic displacement and the other one just didn't explain very well. If I had not kept looking after the first one I mentioned, I would think that rhythmic displacement = polyrhythms. None of those books even mentioned polymeters or using polymeters to improvise and comp. Also, none of these other books were for guitar. I'm pretty sure that this is the only one that has examples for guitarists.By the way, IF YOU ARE NOT A GUITAR PLAYER, YOU SHOULD STILL GET THIS BOOK. Since the book is really about concepts, you will be able to apply it to your instrument. Everything is explained SO CLEARLY that I seriously doubt there's another book out there that will explain it better.

This book deserves a lot of attention from guitar players from all levels. I wish I had this book a lot sooner. The audio examples are absolutely necessary for understanding these concepts. It's nice that Jan made sure to leave a second track of each exercise with just the drum beat. But I will mention that the stone kick metronome app has been invaluable to helping me get just the 5:2 study down. I can see myself coming back to and working from this book time and time again. When i saw this book, it stood out from all the others. Not only because of the intriguing cover, but the title and content. Why would it take so long for something so important and critical to come to fruition? Even Kenny Werner couldn't have stressed more how important it is to work on rhythm. What are you waiting for??? But this book!! Use the concepts!!

Excellent book. It covers a range of advanced topics, but the author explains it in a very detailed and fool-proof manner. I wish I'd found this book a few years ago when I was having a hard time with polyrhythms. The good thing about this book is that the explanations are not centered around an specific instrument. As a guitar player, when it came to rythm topics, I found that most books and tutorials were mostly targeted to drummers making it it hard for me to apply it to the guitar. This book however, makes a good job at explaining the concept in a generic way and then shows excerpts of how to apply the concept to the guitar. Overall, the book makes advanced topics look like first grade math. Definetly recommend it.

Un libro maravilloso con recursos rítmicos para guitarra brillantes, recomendado para amusicos de jazz y de. Rock progresivo. Amaran las ideas que puede dar este libro.

Five years ago maybe it was a good idea to take a look at this book to understand metric modulations, polyrhythms and polymeters in some depth. But during this time so many online resources have come across and these concepts are much better explained nowadays than what it's on the book. I must confess that I bought this book a few years ago, and by then I found it challenging. Now, having already studied these subjects from a classical music perspective (i.e. through Elliot Carter's compositions), now the content isn't appealing at all. Considering the price and title I would point out the flaws I find:-It's an on demand printed book whose layout is awful, since its 114 pages could have been compacted into half of that.-There are some mistakes right at the beginning of the book (when he explains the 4:3 polyrhythm -fraction:ratio-, definitions which by the way are taken by the author without any math or logical basis whatsoever). Also, his "display" of simultaneous sixteenths enclosed into quarter at different tempos (metric modulation) is rather confusing.-As the author points out on his footnotes, many examples could have been written with an odd time tempo signature, so why even to bother, it would be just a matter of writing the "explicit" polymeter to realize the polyrhythm.-There is no visual aid on the written examples that would point out polyrhythms/polymeters being accomplished, since that is only realized while sounding the recorded examples or perhaps by training with a metronome at some other "pulse" considered. Only clues are the obvious odd groupings on a common time bar. So you need to listen to the example audios or resign to develop a sense of 2 simultaneous but independent tempo/meters in your head (maybe it would have helped to focus on the guitar possibilites to achieve polyrhythms "single-handed" on one instrument alone by picking exercises, like some african instrumentists sound).-The given examples are not well developed for guitar. You must rely on the rhythm section to make sense of what the purpose is, with no guitar standing alone. Besides, there are no nice harmonic examples, but rather vamps or melody outlines/impros of nearly poor musical sense.On the other hand the pro's would be:-It explains the notation for several odd note groupings on the form "fraction:ratio" , step by step, and in a clear manner (wherever there are no edition mistakes) for different numbers: 5:2, 4:3, 3:7, etc.-Exercises for polyrhythms are ok, but not enough, based on the provided audio download.-Webpage resources are fine.-It's also useful the rather intuitive "implicit polymeter" tricks (bar grouping, syncopation, accents and dotted notes), but none in examples.Overall it's a book which doesn't hurt to have, but a little overpriced and as some review says, "over-hyped". It seems to be more like some useful thinking and ideas someone developed to find his way out, rather than an actual method to apply on the guitar.

I recommend this book to any musician, not just guitarists.

Guitarists have long been known to be bad at their rhythm fundamentals, so much so that there are plenty of jokes about it. This book, if perused from cover to cover, will go a long way towards ending that perception. Going beyond the basics of time signatures, it allows guitarists to think of compound time signatures in an easy way, and notates them in a way that makes perfect sense once you've read through the book.I gleaned a lot of information from this book, and though I'm not a jazz guitarist (I play metal), I found myself better able to conceptualize odd meter ideas and understand the underlying rhythmic aspects of how drums work with the guitars better, among other things.I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in actually understanding what's going on in complex rhythmic situations. It might be a slightly dense read at times, but if you take a break and come back to it, your brain would have assimilated what you read earlier, and allow you to move forward without problems.

Gostei bastante muito obrigado pelo atendimento e pela venda.

An extremely well researched and executed instructional text. Would highly recommend to all composers or instrumentalists(specifically those who play harmony instruments). Exercises should be learned to assess application of concepts and expanded on by the studying musicians for better retention. This is a very dense book. A calculator and metronome app are not mentioned but will be beneficial if not essential.-LS

tutto bene

Muy buen libro. Al princicpio puede parecer abrumador, sin embargo al utilizar los audio que se pueden descargar de su sitio web todo queda más claro.

The book covers metric modulation, polyrhythms and polymeters and the author gives a lot of helpful advice and explains concepts very clearly. This book has now given me plenty of ideas that I can use for my music. A very good book indeed. You will improve a lot by studying this book.