Beatnik Method Book: A Drummer's Excercise Encyclopedia

By Janel Healy

The Beatnik Rhythmic Analyzer, a practice pad, advanced metronome and accuracy-scoring device for drummers, will soon have its own published volume of exercises, thanks to music educator Chuck Silverman and his student Chris Green. The method book, with a working title of “A Drummer’s Exercise Encyclopedia for Beatnik,” is a comprehensive guide for commanding rhythm and time for snare drum, drum set and beyond using the Beatnik tool.

According to Green, the book contains a compilation of four “matrices”—the Permutations Matrix, the Sticking Matrix, the Accent Matrix, and the Dynamics Matrix—that show every possible way for a drummer to play.

"For example, the Sticking Matrix shows every combination of stickings for any grouping from two to seven notes long,” Green says. “The most basic use of this matrix would be to practice stickings that have the same number of notes as the subdivision you’re practicing, like a two-note sticking and eighth notes, three-note stickings and eighth-note triplets, and so on. Then, by superimposing stickings that don’t match the subdivision, you get into practicing alternative phrasing in that subdivision.”

The advantage of practicing this material with the Beatnik Rhythmic Analyzer is that you can set up the device to aid you with all the different aspects of the exercises. You can program the product to play any permutation of a subdivision and create phrases up to two bars long in common time. “This helps tremendously when exploring some of the more advanced phrasing and polyrhythmic ideas in the book,” explains Green.

For more information, visit http://www.tuners.com/, click on “Products,” then go to “Beatnik Rhythmic Analyzer.” Or, check out www.ChuckSilverman.com and look under “Books.”

Leave a Comment

*Your name:
*Your email:	(email will not be published)
Your website:	(optional)
*Comment:
*CAPTCHA: