Time Check!

Although very obvious to me, you may not realize all music must occur in time. Like the steady second hand on your wristwatch that sets the pace for your daily schedule, there is a steady pulse behind most music. Take that pulse away, and dancing would almost be impossible. There would be no more bobbing your head or tapping your foot to the beat. But did you ever stop and think about which of these beats get you feeling groovy while other ones tend to lengthen or shorten time, even making it seem "uneven"? Without getting too detailed, the meter, denoted by a time signature on sheet music, is one of the most fundamental tools in composition. A simple rock song is in 4. Normally, we either count in 2, 3, or 4 when listening to familiar music. A military march would be counted in 2 and a waltz in 3. Odd meters, like 5 or 7 are used to create a more ambiguous sense of time. Typical applications of these meters include scores for Broadway musicals and movie scores, where certain scenes seem to take place in a dimension all their own. Dave Brubeck experimented with odd meter heavily, and is mostly known for his piano piece Blue Rondo a la Turk and as Paul Desmond's pianist on Take Five.