Though he’s a founder of Dazzling Killmen, Laddio Bolocko, and the Mars Volta, bands whose influence extends widely among experimental, progressive, and technical hardcore musicians, the author’s playing and teaching go far beyond genre and are rooted in rudiments, Scottish Pipe band drumming, jazz, and beyond.

Blake Fleming is an omnivorous student of the drums, so his announcement about self-publishing The Book of Rhythm was met with keen interest by those familiar with his career. A conversation with a student in November of 2017 prompted Fleming, who’s been teaching drums since he was a teenager, to actualize his dream of creating his own method book. After a few false starts, research into the theories of composer, theorist, and advisor Joseph Schillinger inspired him to create a rhythmic “book of spells.” The resulting Book of Rhythm is an encyclopedia of 5,096 possible rhythmical permutations of 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, and 12-beat combinations that can be used for rhythm study, reading, compositional inspiration, or creativity—on any instrument.

For Fleming, this kind of open-ended reference book is a perfect model of his teaching style. “I want to unlock students mentally and physically,” he says, “so that they can start to get their own ideas out in an articulate and powerful manner. I’m very interested in helping people find their own voice on the instrument. The fact that this book is a vast archive with which you can create should make it appeal to composers and musicians of all backgrounds. It truly is a reference book, workbook, and an overall creative manual.”

One of the book’s strengths is its simplicity. The rhythms use only quarter notes, 8th notes, and dotted quarter notes. Even students with limited exposure to reading will be able to sit down and play most of the examples, and a little effort can unlock them all. Fleming lists every permutation of possible three- to twelve-beat combinations progressively through the book’s 229 pages, but you could also just open a page at random, pick a rhythm, and start playing. The book includes a short introduction and an appendix of “creative usage” ideas that you can apply to the rhythms, but the material is generally unadorned. As Fleming writes in his introduction, this is “not just a collection of exercises and patterns but rather something alchemical and universal.” Your instrument or compositional practice could include working from any one of these thousands of rhythms while applying multiple approaches to the source material.

Fleming says he wants The Book of Rhythm to become the Syncopation for the 21st century and recommends that drummers use the “Alan Dawson method” on the rhythmic material that can be found in his book.

Blake outlines his teaching approach further: “Even within a basic snare solo, all four limbs and all parts of the kit can eventually be utilized. There are so many miniature lessons just within one piece, and sometimes there are many lessons just around one measure. This is where The Book of Rhythm comes in, because you can take one measure of rhythm and see how many ways you can utilize and manipulate it.”

The Book of Rhythm stands in opposition to the over-engineered tendencies in drum pedagogy and gives the reader more control to develop a personal path through the essential elements of rhythm. It’s a unique addition to the literature and is a recommended book for creative drummers.