It looks strange, but there were the Etudes by Czerny, that I liked to play while studying in the music school. I enjoyed their rhythmical element and, of course, their utmost purposefulness. That means the gradual technical loading both the left and the right hands in turns, while marking especially complicated places, and mastering the well-done melodious relief of every etude.

My rhythmical etudes are based on these exact methods. However I endowed them with the element of narration, for all of the etudes are given their own names, revealing the characters, while performing these useful miniatures.

I'd like to pay your attention to the playing of the syncopation. Those musicians, who are not connected with jazz use to syncopate too actively, a bit nervously, sharply accentuating the second bit in the figure. The syncopations should not be accentuated in jazz. It's just enough for them to be called syncopations. First of all try to sustain utterly the time value of notes and rests, forming the clear constant rhythm. Then the syncopation may be "all right", for it will be marked by its own inner means (e. g. Etudes No. 3 and 6). Usually such problems in jazz are solved during the master-classes, i. e. the accent, the syncopation or the phrasing. However you'll hopefully accept my advices and they are to become of a profit to you.

O. Khromushyn (translated by Asya Ardova)

Contents

I Forest's Awakening
II Milky Way Blues (Only for children!)
III Night Screen
IV Typewriter (Toccata)
V Indigo Mood (Etude to D. Ellington's theme)
VI On Tiptoes (Etude to jazz theme by N. Hefti)
VII The Black Sea (Etude to the theme by I. Dunaevsky from the fdm "My Love") .
VIII Etude in the Jazz-Waltz Manner
IX Aelita (Etude to the theme from the musical of the same name)