Thinking back to when I first started tackling polyrhythms, five-over-three groupings gave me a considerable amount of trouble. I didn’t have much facility with quintuplets at the time, and a five-over-three polyrhythm has a lot of space between each partial. I vividly recall sitting in a hotel lobby between sets on a freelance gig, tapping on my leg, and counting intently until I finally started to get a handle on the rhythm.

February 2018 Issue