Why do I feel uncomfortable doing something else than 4/4?

[paveloso]

Maybe because we just have two hands and two feet...

Yeah, that is one theory. Another one is that it's because our hearts beat in 4/4.

Uhm, how's that? that would mean, what, and accent on the one after four? how come there's no accent in mine? In fact, if I compare to a click track, I can't even set a definitive tempo to my beat at any given time... What, it's 120 bpm too?...

No, that would mean it is a binary beat. There is a lot of music that's in 4/4 and does NOT have accent on the ONE of every beat. But you probably already know that as a musician.

You may be the only person I know who has actually tried to set a definite BPM to your heartbeat! ... Not to mention it would vary constantly, depending on a whole lot of different factors (mood, physical activity, internal processes - such as digestion, et al). Also, I really doubt there is a heart that has practiced against a click track in an attempt to achieve perfect time.

We must have been constructed by a different factory, I can't find the click track.

Keep looking, and good luck with that.

Are you forced to speak in quantized eighths or sixteenths? Can you surgically get a groove template implant job?

Speech is actually connected to the brain, not the heart...

I would NOT trust whomever convinced you your pulse is in 4/4.

I would NOT trust ANYONE who times his/her heartbeat to a click track!

Oh my. Was that all too dry a joke for yez?
(Or is this one too loud a one for me.)

You haven't shown me how 'the heart beats in 4/4'.
It's a little like showing me how 'we speak in C major', or whatever convention we are most comfortable with.

Let me explain: if I were to want to derive a 'beat' from my heart beat, I'd have to record it, import it into cubase and *WARP to audio*, which will tend to show a variety of tempi, once we're done.

The TIME SIGNATURE will tend to be determined according to what I am looking for, and how I set the parameters in detecting the beat.

What you did here was - according to my METAPHOR - just that, and you imposed 4/4 on it.

Binary, btw, is either/or, like ON/OFF. Up/Down strokes. L/R sticking as a drummer. The binary action of the heart pumping equals ONE of the beats we hear or feel, so it's in what: 1/1? 1/2? 1/4? what, exactly?

4/4 is four quarter note beats. I'm happy for you if you are comfortable with your statement, but I believe I have indicated how absurd it actually is.

fight the pipe and pray for slack

jc

You have?

Well... I respect your views, but I'll continue to count my pulse in 4 (and speak in quantized 16ths - with a light swing template).

Peace, dude.

[VitaminD]

If you sat on a commode to do your business for decades (hopefully not at a time!) then one day went some place where they squatted over a hole to do their business.. I bet you'd feel uncomfortable too (well maybe until you finished said biz)

the point being you're used to it... so its natural to you..

on a side note, whats odd for me is I tend to come up with riffs in 3 when I'm trying to write 4!

[sundancemusic]

Walter Mathieu, who wrote a couple of amazing books on music, suggests that the pulse of five is easier to feel than you imagine. Next time you go for a walk, tap your fingers, one at a time, in succession against the pulse of your binary walking pattern...now try to write your tune.

[graysonmillar]

haha I totally know how you feel man,

I used to be in a couple experimental/progressive metal & grindcore bands, and back then it was 'the thing to do' to write in 3/4.

I think I'm just hotwired to work in 4/4, i just can't 'find that groove' like you said.

But I don't mind, I work with mostly popular/mainstream genre's nowadays, so I never really have to work in another time sig. (with the exception of bridges & transitional stuff)

if you want to do it, then just keep trying & you'll get a knack for it. just don't frustrate yourself too much

[kenn]

I'm not much of a musician, but today I got Frank Zappa in the headphones, and totally dug "Watermelons in Easter Hay" which is in slow 9/4. Pink Floyd "Money" ? 7/4 (mostly). I also dig some 5/4.

It's all exposure, and letting yourself get "into" the more odd time signatures. Only took me 40 years.

[lotus2035]

4/4 is the devils time sig and is being used by the evil illuminati through that awful tarnce musik and their evil ecstasy tablets in their uber master plan to brainwash the unsuspecting public into braindead subservience!...

AVANTGARDE MUSICIANS, YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE!..SAVE US FROM DESTRUCTION!..

[hao nao]

when music arises in my head, it's often in 3/4 time

maybe I was born to waltz

[jancivil]

4/4 is the devils time sig and is being used by the evil illuminati through that awful tarnce musik and their evil ecstasy tablets in their uber master plan to brainwash the unsuspecting public into braindead subservience!...

AVANTGARDE MUSICIANS, YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE!..SAVE US FROM DESTRUCTION!..

4/4 is just a convention for measuring time, and just like time itself, it has no actual qualities.

if someone is more comfortable with this or that convention, to the exclusion of all else, then that person is limited by conventional thinking;

one example of this is bountifully evident in the either/or thinking I see in your post.

[jancivil]

Maybe because we just have two hands and two feet...

Yeah, that is one theory. Another one is that it's because our hearts beat in 4/4.

Uhm, how's that? that would mean, what, and accent on the one after four? how come there's no accent in mine? In fact, if I compare to a click track, I can't even set a definitive tempo to my beat at any given time... What, it's 120 bpm too?...

No, that would mean it is a binary beat. There is a lot of music that's in 4/4 and does NOT have accent on the ONE of every beat. But you probably already know that as a musician.

You may be the only person I know who has actually tried to set a definite BPM to your heartbeat! ... Not to mention it would vary constantly, depending on a whole lot of different factors (mood, physical activity, internal processes - such as digestion, et al). Also, I really doubt there is a heart that has practiced against a click track in an attempt to achieve perfect time.

We must have been constructed by a different factory, I can't find the click track.

Keep looking, and good luck with that.

Are you forced to speak in quantized eighths or sixteenths? Can you surgically get a groove template implant job?

Speech is actually connected to the brain, not the heart...

I would NOT trust whomever convinced you your pulse is in 4/4.

I would NOT trust ANYONE who times his/her heartbeat to a click track!

Oh my. Was that all too dry a joke for yez?
(Or is this one too loud a one for me.)

You haven't shown me how 'the heart beats in 4/4'.
It's a little like showing me how 'we speak in C major', or whatever convention we are most comfortable with.

Let me explain: if I were to want to derive a 'beat' from my heart beat, I'd have to record it, import it into cubase and *WARP to audio*, which will tend to show a variety of tempi, once we're done.

The TIME SIGNATURE will tend to be determined according to what I am looking for, and how I set the parameters in detecting the beat.

What you did here was - according to my METAPHOR - just that, and you imposed 4/4 on it.

Binary, btw, is either/or, like ON/OFF. Up/Down strokes. L/R sticking as a drummer. The binary action of the heart pumping equals ONE of the beats we hear or feel, so it's in what: 1/1? 1/2? 1/4? what, exactly?

4/4 is four quarter note beats. I'm happy for you if you are comfortable with your statement, but I believe I have indicated how absurd it actually is.

fight the pipe and pray for slack

jc

You have?

Well... I respect your views, but I'll continue to count my pulse in 4 (and speak in quantized 16ths - with a light swing template).

Peace, dude.

I have certainly showed, and I think you proved my point, that you simply prefer counting in 4 (there is nothing to indicate anything is a quarter-note duration outside of reference to an other duration! any more than you can say something is the downbeat unless it has either a stronger accent than the other beats, or by comparison with other events in context), and it's only reasonable to infer that this preference for a convention has no reality in-and-of-itself; but, you continue to act as if it does, anyway.
Which fits a definition of absurd, surely.

peace has nothing to do with it. I sharpen critical faculties by using them, others may prefer not to, for whatever reason. NO offense. I'm a stickler for clarity.

[paveloso]

Yeah, that is one theory. Another one is that it's because our hearts beat in 4/4.

Uhm, how's that? that would mean, what, and accent on the one after four? how come there's no accent in mine? In fact, if I compare to a click track, I can't even set a definitive tempo to my beat at any given time... What, it's 120 bpm too?...

No, that would mean it is a binary beat. There is a lot of music that's in 4/4 and does NOT have accent on the ONE of every beat. But you probably already know that as a musician.

You may be the only person I know who has actually tried to set a definite BPM to your heartbeat! ... Not to mention it would vary constantly, depending on a whole lot of different factors (mood, physical activity, internal processes - such as digestion, et al). Also, I really doubt there is a heart that has practiced against a click track in an attempt to achieve perfect time.

We must have been constructed by a different factory, I can't find the click track.

Keep looking, and good luck with that.

Are you forced to speak in quantized eighths or sixteenths? Can you surgically get a groove template implant job?

Speech is actually connected to the brain, not the heart...

I would NOT trust whomever convinced you your pulse is in 4/4.

I would NOT trust ANYONE who times his/her heartbeat to a click track!

Oh my. Was that all too dry a joke for yez?
(Or is this one too loud a one for me.)

You haven't shown me how 'the heart beats in 4/4'.
It's a little like showing me how 'we speak in C major', or whatever convention we are most comfortable with.

Let me explain: if I were to want to derive a 'beat' from my heart beat, I'd have to record it, import it into cubase and *WARP to audio*, which will tend to show a variety of tempi, once we're done.

The TIME SIGNATURE will tend to be determined according to what I am looking for, and how I set the parameters in detecting the beat.

What you did here was - according to my METAPHOR - just that, and you imposed 4/4 on it.

Binary, btw, is either/or, like ON/OFF. Up/Down strokes. L/R sticking as a drummer. The binary action of the heart pumping equals ONE of the beats we hear or feel, so it's in what: 1/1? 1/2? 1/4? what, exactly?

4/4 is four quarter note beats. I'm happy for you if you are comfortable with your statement, but I believe I have indicated how absurd it actually is.

fight the pipe and pray for slack

jc

You have?

Well... I respect your views, but I'll continue to count my pulse in 4 (and speak in quantized 16ths - with a light swing template).

Peace, dude.

I have certainly showed, and I think you proved my point, that you simply prefer counting in 4 (there is nothing to indicate anything is a quarter-note duration outside of reference to an other duration! any more than you can say something is the downbeat unless it has either a stronger accent than the other beats, or by comparison with other events in context), and it's only reasonable to infer that this preference for a convention has no reality in-and-of-itself; but, you continue to act as if it does, anyway.
Which fits a definition of absurd, surely.

peace has nothing to do with it. I sharpen critical faculties by using them, others may prefer not to, for whatever reason. NO offense. I'm a stickler for clarity.

I'm a stickler for peace.

Again... Peace, dude.

[justin3am]

Even when I use weird polyrhytms I perfer to do so in 4/4 time simply because mathematically it works out very well. Intervals of 12, 20, 28 or 36 16th notes corespond to 3/4, 5/4, 7/4, and 9/4 (respectively) very easily. I can do tempo changes without automation the same way, if I treat six 16th notes as a 1/4 note at 128BPM, all of a sudden I'm at 96BPM and if you use triplets to transition from one tempo to the next, the change feels very natural to the listener.

While the numbers themselves may never change, you can always find more flexible ways to use them.

[ouroboros]

Even when I use weird polyrhytms I perfer to do so in 4/4 time simply because mathematically it works out very well. Intervals of 12, 20, 28 or 36 16th notes corespond to 3/4, 5/4, 7/4, and 9/4 (respectively) very easily. I can do tempo changes without automation the same way, if I treat six 16th notes as a 1/4 note at 128BPM, all of a sudden I'm at 96BPM and if you use triplets to transition from one tempo to the next, the change feels very natural to the listener.

While the numbers themselves may never change, you can always find more flexible ways to use them.

woah - that worked. I have much to learn. I use automation almost exclusively and it just messes me up. Calculus, I guess.

[VicDiesel]

Even when I use weird polyrhytms I perfer to do so in 4/4 time simply because mathematically it works out very well. Intervals of 12, 20, 28 or 36 16th notes corespond to 3/4, 5/4, 7/4, and 9/4 (respectively) very easily. I can do tempo changes without automation the same way, if I treat six 16th notes as a 1/4 note at 128BPM, all of a sudden I'm at 96BPM and if you use triplets to transition from one tempo to the next, the change feels very natural to the listener.

Interesting. Have you ever done renaissance / early baroque music? That sort of thing happens there all the time. A piece will start in 4, then continue in 3 where a bar of 3/4 is the same length as half a bar of 4/4, then switch back to 4/4 with a bar equal to 2 bars of 3/4 time, et cetera.

Of course they'll typically mix it up, so it's not quite as simple. For instance, going from 3/4 to 4/4, where the bar length stays the same, the music will often then go into 3/2 at the end of the 3/4 section, so you go from playing half notes in 3/2 to half notes in 4/4, but they change speed.

Fun stuff.

Victor.

[Marc Schonbrun]

Our hearts beat in duple time...

[paveloso]

Our hearts beat in duple time...

Ditto.
Mine does. Jancivil's doesn't.