Hey you! Read. My. Rhythm.

The "Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms" by Gary Hess is the workbook that makes up for part, more like half, of my daily rhythm practice. It's a great book for absolutely any instrument! To benefit from this book, you will need to be disciplined and practice (nearly) daily.

The book starts you out with some basic rhythms and breaks them down from quarter notes, to eighth notes, to sixteenth notes and so on. You will need a metronome! You begin each exercise at a slow tempo (such as 40-44) and gradually speed up to a much quicker tempo (such as 136-140); however, this does not apply to all exercises, it does change as you progress through the book.

The challenge is to master the basics at a medium tempo, before you move on. For those of us who are experienced musicians, it's a mental battle to trudge through the slow tempos, but you need to do your best, it will pay off when you get to much faster tempos.

I practice this for about 10 minutes a day, in addition to my other rhythmic work.

Song of the day: "Minor Swing" - Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli