For all drummers, instrumentalists, singers, producers — and every musician ready for rhythmic freedom
You’ve spent years on harmony, melody and sounds
— but when it comes to rhythm?
Western education forgot to give you a system
3x a week I'm posting a lesson to boost your imagination for improvisation, composition and beatmaking. Built on 20 years of independent research, we go all the way from basics to futurism with an ongoing symbiosis of intellectual and embodied practice.
Topics range from Konnakol syllables, polyrhythms (up to 63), subdivisions beyond 8, odd meters, metric modulations, nested tuplets, morphing... plus practical work on your instrument, breakdowns of compositions and wild rhythmic moments from my own music, visualizations, backing tracks, and general thoughts about practicing, music and life.
new lessons every week · embodied practice + musical application
· backing tracks · full archive · group calls · cancel anytime
You can already play the notes! But there is a whole world of rhythm waiting to be explored.
Because most of us were never given a comparable system for rhythm, we keep hitting the same walls:
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You can count and read a complex rhythm — but you can’t embody it yet. So there’s no room left to improvise or actually play freely with it.
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When improvising, composing or beatmaking, you fall back on the same familiar strategies because your rhythmic vocabulary lacks options.
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You have endless routines for scales, chords and synth patches, but probably way less structured systems to expand your rhythm.
This is where so much untapped potential in modern music still lies. When we shift our focus to rhythm, we open up an entirely new dimension of creative expression and connection.
Rhythm is deep work, just like pitches and sound design. But it is also a gateway to deep creative freedom.
The goal of this Patreon is not to give you a quick trick, but to fundamentally reshape how you perceive time. When you start training rhythm with a systematic approach, your playing or programming changes on a structural level:
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Complex meters and polyrhythms stop being things you might avoid and become structures you can actively create with.
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By internalizing the grid, you learn to outgrow it. Your brain gets the breathing room to transcend the meter, improvise, and hear new possibilities in real time.
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Your compositions and beats gain an entirely new depth because your execution can finally match your imagination.
Once you understand the core principles, the whole world becomes your practice room — you can train your rhythmic imagination anywhere, anytime, with or without an instrument.
Understand it. Count it. Hear it. Feel it. Play it. Make it your own.
WHAT YOU GET — Everything here connects three things: understanding the structure, embodying it physically, and using it imaginatively in your own music.
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RHYTHM BOOSTERS: Short, focused lessons that build your rhythmic vocabulary step by step — from pulse, subdivisions, timing and Konnakol to polymeters, polyrhythms, odd meters, metric modulation, nested tuplets and beyond.
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IN ACTION SERIES: Take the concepts away from the exercise and into actual music. Polymeter in Action, Subdivisions in Action and other formats connect the systems directly to your instrument, improvisation and musical practice.
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WTF EXPLAINED: I break down rhythmic ideas from my own music and social-media performance clips — so you can hear what is happening, see the underlying structure and explore it yourself.
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VISUALISATIONS & PDFs: Complex rhythms get much easier to navigate once you can see where the pulses, subdivisions and groupings meet. Visualizations map those relationships so you can internalize them.
- CUSTOM MADE BACKING TRACKS: Practice inside the actual rhythmic relationships instead of only counting them. The tracks are built to help you internalize the structures and start playing freely with them.
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ORIGINAL SYSTEMS: Explore my own rhythmic research and systems, including X Over Y No Borders and other ideas developed through more than 20 years of composing, performing and experimenting with rhythm.
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BUILT DEEP - STILL GROWING: 50+ hours already recorded — released step by step with at least 3 new videos every week. 20 years of independent research — turned into embodied practice and creative tools for your own music.
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START WHERE YOU ARE: Follow the Fundamentals Path step by step, jump straight into Advanced Windows, or go directly to WTF Explained and the weirdest corners of the library. You don’t need to be a rhythm monster already — and if you are one, you don’t have to start at Lesson 1.
10€ / month
new lessons every week · embodied practice + musical application
· backing tracks · full archive · group calls · cancel anytime
What my members say:
"Even after university, I had no system for rhythm. This is an incredible development tool — a real rhythmic workout. With just the first lessons, I could feel myself making progress in rhythmic feeling, understanding, hearing, limb independence and sight-reading. It’s transformed my daily life as a musician and already given me so many ideas for composing." — Svetlana Marinchenko (professional pianist, bandleader and composer)
"Jo is a true rhythmic visionary. His understanding of rhythmical interdependence and polyrhythmic layering is one of a kind. He is constantly searching to expand and deepen his art, and through his process he has opened up whole new concepts and fields of study for the rest of us.
It is hard to find someone who has single-handedly expanded rhythmic conception in improvised music (or any music for that matter) to the extent that he has.
On top of that, he has always viewed himself as part of the broader jazz and improvised music community, and has done so much to open up spaces for performance and discourse. Jo presents his material with a modest and unassuming manner that is refreshing in these times. There is much more here than you may think—go listen and practice.“
— Prof. Marc Muellbauer (Jazz Double Bass Professor, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Hi, this is Jo aka Beatdenker
I’m a guitarist, finger drummer, bandleader, composer, producer, creator, future socialist and privileged inhabitant of planet Earth. I dedicated my life to music to help it evolve — to make it more colorful, pluralistic, global, captivating, and witty. Along the way, I’ve released 15+ albums of my own music, played hundreds of concerts, and worked with artists and rhythm masters like B.C. Manjunath and
insane rapper Myka 9. Through my music, my research, my real-utopian thinking and actions, and these tutorials, I hope to be a source of inspiration and motivation for you. My aim here is simple: to enhance your musical imagination, precision, performance and production.
Around 50 of my Recursive Rhythm Get-Togethers — open, free, two-hour sessions with international professional musicians — are the living proof of this approach. Now I'm bringing all of it together in one place, for you.
Btw: This space means one thing: no bullshit — just fun, growth, love and respect.
Grow as a musician and a human. Here are some learnings beyond rhythm:
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Radical Imagination: Societal structures are fluid like rhythm. If rhythm can change, the systems we live in can change. Let’s envision alternative worlds.
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Focus Over Dopamine: Reclaim your attention. Trade quick digital kicks for patience, focus and the joy of solving a complex rhythmic puzzle.
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Countering Harmonic Hegemony: Western music theory lacks embodiment. We bring rhythmic ingenuity to the same level to unlock total creative freedom.
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XenoBeats & Empathy: Replacing the fear of the unknown (xeno) with global openness. Unfamiliar rhythms are an invitation to exchange and respect.
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Understanding Complexity: Practicing complex rhythms with people teaches us to tolerate ambiguities and resolve paradoxes simultaneously—empowering us to intervene in an overwhelming reality and build a world worth living for all.
Current members include novices, intermediates, music students, professionals, and professors from diverse countries and musical backgrounds.
Step out of the grid and step into a rhythmic world most musicians haven't even discovered yet.
Join the system on Patreon. Get your 3+ weekly inputs, unlock the full growing archive, start where you are, go as far as you want and let’s grow this community together.
UNLOCK YOUR RHYTHMIC FREEDOM
Yippie n peace out
Jo