For me it’s time signatures in music. I grew up playing instruments, played in several orchestras, etc. But no matter how many times someone tries to explain time signatures to me, it makes no sense. I don’t understand why people place such importance on it. To me, notes have a pitch and a duration, maybe some dynamics. That’s it. I don’t understand why people try to needlessly complicate it. It doesn’t give you anything.
My wife will hear a song and go “Oh neat, it’s in 5/8.” And I’m like “How tf do you know that, and why does it matter?”
That could be part of the problem: time signatures aren’t a property of the notes, they’re a property of the song. The time signature is the rhythm and flow of the music. If you try to do a waltz in 4/4, it’s probably not going to sound like a waltz unless you do some really screwy things.
Plus, knowing the time signature helps you figure out why that guy is waving his stick like that while you’re playing.
Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters is a walz and you can’t convince me otherwise.
I give you those “screwy things”. Somebody stripped the fifth beats from Brubeck’s magnum opus, and made the most waltz sounding 4 I’ve ever heard.
Take Four
It’s funny how stripping out the fourth beat just sounds like a band who doesn’t quite know how Take 5 goes and they’re just winging it: https://youtu.be/t3u8GwMlJaw
Interesting how the 4 is kind of ghosted
Comment so I can find this later
You could write in triplets in 4/4.
Anything can be in 4/4 if you count hard enough.
That really bothered me at first! Kept thinking ‘why ever have a different time sig? No need for 13/8 (or whatever) when you can just sprinkle in double dotted 16th notes tied to 8th note (or whatever).’
Over time I slowly realized that it’s not about technically being able to write it, but rather describing what usually happens. (Tho I still don’t really understand, intuit, or hear any of it well.)