time signature
"Sure it's in time. You can start playing wherever you want. A time signature is like a big grid. You can place your notes anywhere in the grid that you choose. You are not obligated to start in square 1. "
"A time signature is like a trailer of a movie that comes on before the main feature. You see the trailer and find out six months before the movie's release date that it's a comedy or a horror show or an adventure flick."
"To cement this concept for him, I used the analogy that the time signature is like the painter's canvas. It has dimensions and the painter can only paint within the dimensions of the canvas. The rhythmic subdivisions (specifically the Table of Time) are much like the painter's palette. Drummers use different combinations of rhythmic subdivisions to creatively subdivide the pulses within each measure of a song."
"There is potential in your idea and many people thought of it, but the main time signature is like the skeleton of a song and messing with it will need practise and experience to make something pleasing."
"A time signature is like a code that tells you two things: 1) how many beats in a measure and 2) what type of note value gets one beat. The top number of a time signature tells us how many beats per measure (irrelevant to your questions) while the bottom number tells us what gets the beat."
"Rhythm and Patterns are easy to see and feel! Musical notation is comprised of fractions - whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note etcetera. Patterns of these notes are grouped into different measures or bars that are given a time signature. The time signature is like a fraction of which the numerator is the number of beats per measure and the denominator represents the type of note getting one beat. The arrangement of the rhythm in a repetitive pattern of strong and weak beats provides for the meter of the music."
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.