I would like to explain what “Polymetric Puzzles” is about and the motivation for creating it. During much of my music experience, I have had a strong interest in the idea of experimenting with music from a perspective of interesting meters, as well as the use of polyrhythms. Music that contains odd meters and rhythms has always intrigued me. You can find examples of this in many forms of music. Examples include Popular Music, Dance Music, Progressive Rock, as well as Art Music (e.g. Impressionistic / Avant Garde), Jazz and and Jazz/Rock fusion.

I have always been fascinated with keyboard musicians who can play different meters and rhythms between two hands. This seemed like an interesting challenge to conquer. The main focus of the book is to give the reader opportunities to develop independence of the hands using (as I refer to them) “Polymetric Puzzles”.

Much of the book contains a variety of puzzles that the keyboardist needs to solve. In addition, there are recommendations on how to play variations. There are also sections of the text with fully written out manuscript consisting of a variety of composed works based upon polymetric patterns.

My intention when developing this book was to illustrate the interesting aspects of both polymeters and polyrhythms so that the reader gains interest with these aspects of music, to increase independence of the hands, as well as experiment further beyond the text. I also hope the reader discovers these techniques to be useful tools for improvisation and composition.

You can gain an additional perspective on the book from this July 2016 Keyboard Magazine article written by Robbie Gennet here.

Jeff Fineberg