It's obvious that most popular music has a strong rhythmic component – and the modern-styles keyboard player needs well-developed beat and rhythm skills just to keep up.

Sadly, many people subconsciously believe that, when it comes to syncopation and advanced rhythms, you’ve either ‘got it’ or you haven’t. It's like people saying "I can't dance for the life of me - I've two left feet."

Well, that’s just not true. What has been lacking is a head-on, methodical approach to improving your rhythm skills. The Musicarta Beat and Rhythm Workbook have four full, progressive lesson series that will give you absolutely the best chance to get over the hump and master professional-level two-handed syncopation and rhythms.

Our usual way of trying to ‘get’ difficult rhythms – namely, just trying again and again – is unscientific, inefficient, and frustrating. With the right learning material, anybody can be much better at syncopation than they ever thought possible. And Musicarta has gone all out to make sure you get all the help you deserve, with advanced video material and sympathetic coaching right from the start.

What's essential in good learning material is to build up to the complicated thing gradually, and that, of course, is what the Musicarta Beat and Rhythm Workbook make quite sure happens - that you get the basics down and build up from there, and that you learn the right way to approach complicated rhythms for yourself. And not once, not twice but four times over - with different material so you don't get bored, you've always got something different to practice, or brush up, on or get better at, and to ensure you have no trouble putting the productive hours in - and let's be honest, like any muscle-memory skill, this is what you need to do.

The first of the four modules is the snake dance, that timeless novelty piano teachers hate but everyone can do a silly dance too. It's fun. And, it's the basic - in the Musicarta Beat and Rhythm Workbook - for a whole raft of big and bold two-handed rhythmic patterns to get you started - patterns which transfer wholesale to a broad sweep of pop genres. Next up, syncopation and anticipation tenths. Very 'pop'-y. Might not be the style of music you're looking to play, but the rhythm skills involved - a bit more 'micro' than the snake dance - will never be out of date.

Talk about practicing the piano and sooner or later, you're talking about Hanon, those 150-year-old piano exercises which just won't lie down and die. Because, of course, they work - they're a very efficient way to train your fingers. But why not train your rhythm skills at the same time - just as methodically. And now you can. Thirty or so progressive rhythmic patterns for you to master in an easy, stationary five-finger position first. That on its own would be sufficient, but here, you apply them to the Hanon exercises, which are also demonstrated for you. Anybody can get them, and a quick listen to the examples and your daily finger warm-up has doubled in functionality.

Lastly, rhythmic pentatonic scales. Everybody will tell you, the good players have all learned their scales. And that's not about passing exams, it's about getting up and down your keyboard in a variety of keys. But popular music is based, more often than not, on the five-note pentatonic scales, which have, in effect, no wrong notes. Let's rather practice those, then. And while we're about it, how about throwing in some cool, jazz/blues rhythms? So, for you, six minor pentatonic scales explained and demonstrated with entry-level practice drills, and a progressive series of jazz-blues rhythms to play them in. It really is music off the shelf.

So, join the Beat and Rhythm Workbook fast track. Don't be defeated by ineffective trial-and-error efforts. The Beat and Rhythm Workbook level the playing field with on-tap, structured learning material guaranteed to take everybody forward further and faster than they ever thought possible. See you on the course.