Benadon, Fernando - Swinglines

Offers insights into underexplored topics that many musicians find exciting yet conceptually puzzling
• Cuts across musical styles and traditions, encompassing Bach, Hendrix, Brazilian music, hip-hop, tango, Herbie Hancock, and more
• Provides quantitative approaches to analyzing rhythm without being math-heavy or overly formalized
• Strikes a balance between abstract theory, improvisational practice, and compositional thought

The way rhythm is taught in Western classrooms and music lessons is rooted in a centuries-old European approach that favors metric levels within a grand symmetrical grid. Swinglines encourages readers to experience rhythms, even gridded ones, as freewheeling affairs irrespective of the metric hierarchy. It shows that rhythms traditionally framed as deviations and non-isochronous have their own identities. They are coherent products of precise musical thought and action. Rather than situating them in the neither-here-nor-there, author Fernando Benadon takes a more inclusive view, one where isochrony and metric grids are shown as particular cases within the universe of musical time.