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Over the decades Ed has made some six hundred exercises, most without names, but each with a serial number. The numbering is loosely chronological but Ed has continually made revisions and offshoots. Different ones were used during different years of the seminar, in different orders. To compose this book Ed chose his favorite ones (a mere 347 of them) and organized them into eight chapters. The chapters are not in any clear progression; the student can start as well at chapter 8 as 1.
Each chapter is divided into four sections, originally called “fun", “blow your mind", “long", and “neat," but now appearing simply as "1.1" and so on. The various tags, and the ideas or strategies behind them, recur at odd intervals through the various chapters and sections, except that each last (“neat") section focuses down on one concept area. For example, section 1.4 is an extended study on the rhythmic ratio 17:11, and section 3.4 examines two measures of a piece by Brian Ferneyhough from many possible points of view, and section 8.4 offers a deep dive into HAMns.