While there exists a large quantity of resources available for teaching music, the majority of these tend to address broad aspects of music, such as music theory including, the rudiments of music and some aspects of aural and written harmony. Others combine these basic theoretical concepts with a brief look at music history.

Indeed it is rare to find a music resource that addresses, in detail, a specific element of music and it is even more rare to find one that offers a sequential programme of study that can be used readily in a classroom.

Rhythm is often neglected in music resource publications. The majority of books only offer scant explications with little or no exercises and when these are included they are often limited to basic examples of rhythmic dictation. Bengt-Olov Palmqvist, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator for Aural and Music Theory studies Australian National University, School of Music has addressed this problem in his new book: The Refinement of Rhythm, A practical guide with supporting CDs for learning to perform increasingly challenging rhythms.

Unlike so many authors, Mr Palmqvist understands that music is about “doing” and concepts, such as rhythm, are much better understood through experiential learning. The Refinement of Rhythm presents the teacher and student with sixteen carefully planned sequential chapters. In each Chapter a number of theoretical concepts are presented in a clear and concise manner. This is followed by some preparatory exercises that lead into the melodic exercises. The beauty of these melodic exercises is the fact that carefully designed CD recordings accompany them all. These CD’s feature two separate channels with the melody line on one and an innovative and interesting rhythmic and harmonic backing on the other.  The positive aspect of this lies in the fact that teachers do not have to concern themselves with performance of rhythms and are able to concentrate their efforts towards the students they are teaching.

What is most impressive about this valuable resource is the fact that Mr Palmqvist presents teachers with a programme that not only develops and enhances a student’s ability to understand the theoretical concepts of rhythms, but also to perform rhythms with confidence. Through the melodic exercises, which may also be performed on the student’s instrument, to the canons and on to improvisation, the benefits gained by students who are able to achieve this are manifold.

Mr Palmqvist is to be congratulated for producing this outstanding resource and I have no hesitation in strongly recommending it to all music teachers. Indeed, every music student from primary school through high school, college and tertiary institutions would benefit from what this book has to offer.

Michael Caesar M.Ed, B.Ed (mus.)(Hons)

First Prize Dip. Brussels Royal Conservatorium, Belgium.

Head of Performing Arts, Narrabundah College.

REVIEW 

Rhythm, most musicians would agree, is the lifeblood of dynamic and vital music making. Yet, regrettably, this subject is among the most poorly taught and most overlooked in music curricula. When rhythm is studied at all for example, in college level music theory classes, it is often presented mainly as an intellectual activity or as a dry mathematical exercise. Learning to perform rhythms well is frequently given curt and careless treatment.

The Refinement of Rhythm, is the first fully comprehensive textbook, to my knowledge, that actually teaches the art of rhythmic performance in finely tuned incremental stages; a “practical guide” as the subtitle states. It is a masterpiece of logical and systematic methodology, format, and layout.  It is a book to be used as part of an extensive and complete course of instruction in aural skills alongside the standard activities of dictation and melodic sightsinging. But as well as this, for those aspiring musicians who wish to develop and expand their rhythmic skills outside of formal coursework, this compendium provides a compelling and authoritative tool for self study.

The book is unusually well designed with a consistent and repeating internal organization that provides for spiral learning by always moving from simple to difficult both within each chapter and between chapters. A wide variety of practice material and approaches exhibiting both breadth and depth is found including warm-up routines, spicy yet tasteful harmonic accompaniments for musical interest, rhythmic canons, compositions for specific rhythmic concepts, improvisations, side-by-side comparative charts of meters and related rhythmic cells, and complex patterns presented as variations of more basic motives; spin-offs of the bite-size foundational vocabulary of rhythmic study. 

Even rhythmic dictation material is available, with unusually detailed instructions on how to practice, as a supplement and support system for the central task of rhythmic performance. Of special interest and distinction is the large number of simple melodic patterns that the rhythm figures are often attached to. 

In other words, the book provides a pitch environment for rhythm much of the time. This makes it possible to either isolate rhythm or to involve it with full-blown melody as the need arises. Ultimately, of course, rhythm needs to be combined with pitch as this book makes abundantly clear.

This text will be worth its price just for the teaching tips alone, which are plentiful and filled with pedagogical and musical insights. 

For most of the topics, detailed advice is offered about how to use the exercises and especially what kinds of errors are most likely and how to protect against them.  The advice often focuses not just on “correctness” or mathematical precision, although, of course, these goals are expected too, but the comments deal frequently with issues of musicality and interpretation as well, by identifying the interconnected role of dynamics, articulation and the subtle nuances of timing. 

It is the goal of the author to capture the intangible “feel” of a gesture, its sense of lightness, weight, grace, or movement, as well as accuracy. It is not only the time values that must be honored but also the lilt of the music, its surges and lulls. Finally, approached in this manner, rhythm must be experienced as a physical or kinesthetic sensation and not merely as a static mental act. All of these values are fully articulated and promoted in the book.

The author of this work is uniquely qualified to write such a groundbreaking text.  

Bengt-Olov Palmqvist has spent over a decade in developing and refining these specific materials and much longer than that teaching the larger subject of aural theory in some of the top music conservatories in both Sweden and Australia. His strong background in composition and conducting shine out through the book too.  He is a real-life performing musician as well as a scholar and teacher. 

Thousands of hours of painstaking care have gone into the design and philosophy of the book with special attention given to making it practical, accessible, and useful.  And the materials have been thoroughly tested in the classroom with enthusiastic student feedback on at least three continents including in the United States.

There are no shortcuts for learning how to perform rhythm well. And rarely is the mission fully accomplished simply through learning to sing or play an instrument. Progress is always the result of hard work, a wise and meticulous pedagogical framework, and a commitment to artistic excellence and mastery on the highest level. 

Mastery on the highest level means that rhythm has been so completely internalized that performance becomes the natural and fluid extension of a stockpile of musical experience. It flows from the performer as sap flows from a tree.  The promise of this book is to provide just such experience.

Michael R. Rogers

Emeritus Professor and Chair of Music Theory, University of Oklahoma

Founding Editor, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

REVIEW 

Ask any performing musician to indicate the most important factor in their development and technique will probably be number one. The digital dexterity of the keyboard and string musician, the breathing factor for the wind, brass and voice musician, consume much of a performer's rehearsal time.

One is left to ponder the question; how much time is devoted to the aural experience?

The ability to " see with the ear and hear with the eye " is not part, regrettably, of the focus for many musicians. Yet, without this ability the level of achievement is minimised and the effort required to achieve substantially increased.

Having been privy to observe, during a lifetime involvement with the growth of students in music performance, particularly at the tertiary level, and having been part of a class of " guinea-pigs " as a student when aural studies were first introduced to the B.Mus. course at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in the 1950's, I am in no doubt that those institutions with sophisticated and well-developed aural programs produce the most musically, as well as technically-aware performers. Aural studies and technical development must be inseperable partners in the development of the performing musician.

Bengt-Olov Palmqvist, Senior Lecturer in Aural Studies at The Australian National University School of Music has produced an authoritative and progressively-structured textbook, The Refinement of Rhythm.  This highly organised text with accompanying CD's should be found in the home of every serious musician. It progresses from simple basic steps through, finally, to complex rhythmic patterns. But these are not bare bone and dry exercises. With each exercise come relevant and increasingly fascinating piano accompaniments, highlighting the author's skills as a composer and performing musician.

This publication, additional to its primary function, learning to cope with increasingly complex rhythmic patterns, is a mine of information. Each of the sixteen chapters concludes with a list of music examples, relevant to the content of the chapter, which the performer/student is encouraged to study. There are excellent appendices, including the clarification of the various nomenclatures that are so often confusing when discussing note-values. The Glossary of Terms, though helpful to an informed musician, could be challenging to the less-experienced.

Although this unique contribution to the understanding of rhythm will be welcomed by advanced students and teachers of music in High Schools, Colleges and Universities, it should also be found in the home of the private music teacher and used by them in their guidance of the younger emerging musician. Its language is progressive, the examples clearly expressed, and the accompanying CD's helpful as an adjunct to the text.

This important publication will fill a void in the " learning to perform increasingly challenging rhythms."

William R Hawkey, MBE

Emeritus Professor,

The Australian National University

April, 2004