Hey everyone,
I have been studying music for eight years, just joined as a freshman playing trombone in my high school's advanced jazz band. Some of our charts have very complex rhythms, such as being in 9/8 time or switching from 5/4 to 3/4 to 4/4 back to 5/4 multiple times in one song. Some of them are in common time but are just too complicated to simply sight read as I go along. One is in cut time which is easy to count but it goes so fast that it gets confusing. When I try to focus on reading the rhythms I lose count and eventually lose my place. How can I get better at this?

anyone....?

i really need help, i am falling further and further behind!

Hi Katherine.

I see you're new to the Forums so welcome. I'm sorry you've not had any helpful replies, and I'm afraid I can't be much help myself because I have trouble counting as well!

It doesn't sound as if you're using a metronome?

The best suggestion I can make is that you change your message on the Forums and post it in a different place. Jazz is not a popular forum to visit (sad sigh) (I love it and can't understand why more people don't cos it makes you so happy!), and even people who "view all new posts" would look at the topic heading, see the word jazz and not go any further if jazz was not of interest to them. Whereas your question is not really about jazz, it's about rhythm. So try this:

Post a new topic with the heading something like Counting complex rhythms (maybe with a sub-head like Please help me!!) and post it in the General Music Forum.

I hope you have more success, from people who know more about rhythm than I do! Best of luck

jazzfan, thanks for your help! i really appreciate it. someday people will learn to appreciate jazz XD

Hey, I have just posted in your other thread

Ben