Course Content
The programme ‘Advanced Rhythm’ is intended for students from both the classical and jazz department, and structured in five different approaches:

1. Birdflight
2. Deepening
3. Expert
4. Composition: Birdflight
5. Composition: Deepening

In order to be admitted, the student should have finished the course Introduction to Advanced Rhythm, or should take this course in the first term (September-December) along with Advanced Rhythm.

Advanced Rhythm provides the rhythmical proficiency needed by musicians in the 21^st century. This panoramic course ‘Birdflight’ offers practice and understanding in three fundamental areas:
•Polyrhythms: insight in layered rhythmical structures. How do you phrase smoothly in accents of 5 against 6, or in 7 against 4? 
• Irregularly distributed accents, beats and meters
• Tuplets and ratios present in music from traditional to contemporary classical/ jazz. How do you play any tuplet double speed, half speed, or against any number of beats?

We use a clear, step-by-step methodology that helps students internalize rhythmic relationships, strengthen their rhythmic independence, navigate metric changes and learn to create their own practice material. ‘Birdflight’ is an overview of all the material treated in the Advanced Rhythm bachelor’s modules.

Classical material matches repertoire of literature by composers such as Boulez, Carter, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ligeti, Adès, Denisov and others, but also, many other styles and geographies. Input by participants is highly encouraged, fragments for auditions and your own artistic projects.

Jazz students will contribute with their original material and draw rhythmical knowledge from artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Snarky Puppy, Vijay Iyer, Miles Okazaki, Kenny Wheeler, Steve Coleman, Aka Moon and others. This blend of structured learning and creative exploration encourages each student to build a personal and practical rhythmic vocabulary.

Learning Objectives

• to phrase independently of the underlying meter
• to develop polyrhythmic thinking, insight, and independence
• to create personalized practice material

Advanced Rhythm provides the rhythmical proficiency needed by musicians in the 21^st century. The course ‘Deepening’ offers practice and understanding in crucial areas:
• Polypulse: different perceptions of the beat, dealing interdependence, cues, visuals, click tracks, etc.
• Comparative notation of polypulse through nested tuplets and ratios. Practical strategies for implementation and rehearsal.
• Creative phrasing and displacement in all speeds/subdivisions
• Metrical modulation, tempo changes.

Reference repertoire for these techniques encompasses a variety of styles and esthetics: Iannis Xenakis, Györgi Ligeti, Drake, Frank Zappa, Tigran Hamasyan, Steve Coleman, Miles Okazaki, Elliot Carter, Vijay Iyer and others.

Classical students are highly encouraged to contribute with input such as fragments for auditions and your own artistic projects.

Jazz students also create their own rhythmic material. This blend of structured learning and creative exploration encourages each student to build a personal and practical rhythmic vocabulary.

Learning Objective
• to achieve exceptional rhythmic independence and insight
• to internalize polyrhythms as foundational meters
• to develop advanced practice material

In the final module of the Advanced Rhythm series, students are trained to become true rhythm experts. We explore broken beats and complex time signatures composed of mixed units (e.g., 5¾, 7½). Students work on pieces that combine and layer all previously learned techniques, constantly reshaping and reinterpreting material in innovative ways.

Classical students deal with complex time signatures, mixed meter and all possible tuplet ratios. Literature ranges from sources of early music to challenging repertoire of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Jazz students draw inspiration from artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Vijay Iyer, Steve Coleman, as well as works by alumni, faculty, and student contributions.

Learning Objective

• to achieve expert-level rhythmic mastery
• to integrate and combine all techniques learned
• to master broken beats and irregular meters

Universal rhythmical concepts empower your individual style. This course offers an intercultural approach that provides clarity, reassuring the composer’s personal view, while facilitating creativity in all diversity of genres and aesthetics.

We highly encourage participants’ input in topics and repertoire.

In this ‘Birdflight’ course we deal with:

• Notions of pulse, non-pulse, cyclicity
• Subdivision, phrasing
• Accents, groupings, polyrhythms
• Irregular accents, pulse and meters
• Phrasing in modulating speeds (half, double, :3, :4, etc.)
• Comparative notation of rhythmical values and time signature
• Creative phrasing and displacement games
• Polypulse: feasibility, physical references, notation
• Metrical modulation, tempo changes
• Alternating polypulse
• Creative phrasing in longer format

Universal rhythmical concepts empower your individual style. This course offers an intercultural approach that provides clarity, reassuring the composer’s personal view, while facilitating creativity in all diversity of genres and aesthetics.

We highly encourage participants’ input in topics and repertoire.

In this ‘Deepening’ course we deal with:

• Relationship rhythm-form-texture in larger form
• Meters containing broken beats
• Traditional and new forms of cyclicity
• Creative phrasing in all speeds, ratios, cycles and broken beats