Arctic Monkeys and Post Malone

Linda: “I was told that I’d get to be openly racist and rich! What the hell!”

I read this in BMO’s voice.

Ohh you touch my tra la la…

slash fic writers sprint to their laptops

I wish you and your teachers the best of luck in your musical studies.

I don’t refer to 4/4 at all.

I refer first to the whole note, existing independently of any time signature. In fact, you don’t even have to assign a rhythmic value to it for now; the purpose of this exercise is to learn why the rhythmic names of the notes are what they are.

Next, envision the half note. So named because they are exactly half the value of the whole note. Two half notes = one whole note. With me so far?

Next, we move to the note in question - the quarter note. So named because it takes four of them to equal the rhythmic value of the whole note.

Now this is important: You originally called it the “fourth note.” So take note: do not confuse the word “fourth” here to mean “fourth in a series,” or “the fourth beat of the measure,” because that’s not the correct application of the word. “Fourth” in this context is synonymous with “quarter.” So a “fourth note” as you call it is so named because it’s one-fourth (¼) the value of the whole note.

This is about as EILI5 as I can make this.

I had the idea that a way to solve this would be to create a symbol that means, “play this note for the entire duration of the measure, regardless of meter.” As far as I know such a symbol doesn’t exist in standard notation.

The term “quarter note” or “fourth note” applies to the note because there are four of them in a whole note. In other words, the names of the notes apply to their subdivisions respective to each other, not the time signature.

Still feeling this at 55.

I’d like some clarification about how the Karl Marx part of my brain feels about Mondays.

Paucity of waifu