Bill Powelson's,
MUSICAL TIME & RHYTHMS:

"FINITE TO INFINITY"

Time-Signature and Permutation
'BEAT EXPLOSIONS': For ALL Musicians.

*** Final thoughts ***

Most remaining X/X time signature modifications 'COULD' go on to 64ths, 128ths, 256th, etc., etc., ad-infinitum. There are so many ways to configure the backbeats and permutations within all those frameworks that it boggles my mind totally!  My best guess is . . . ALMOST ANYTHING could be acceptable as long as the entire band focuses on the same general permutation or permutations, simultaneously. I'm not sure at this point. It might take several lifetimes to investigate every option.

At some point, in the final analysis, our music may simply become music that's totally out-of-time and offensive to the ear!
We all want to hear music that's within reasonable harmony with itself, don't we? Isn't that what MUSIC is all about?

If music upsets our sense of rhythmic balance . . . Is it music, or noise?
At what point does it become noise?  That's the question of the day!

After awhile . . . all this odd-time stuff may become TOTALLY absurd.  If our music has no flow or 'feel'.  If our music is un-danceable and if, we can't pop our fingers to it, it stops being music! If music has LITTLE HYPNOTIC EFFECT, or if it has an opposite, annoying effect, on the average ear, it's probably noise! It may no longer be music, after which it becomes about as much fun to listen-to, as a 'rush-hour traffic-jam in Manhattan at 5:00 pm.

Just the same . . . All this permutation, odd-time and time-signature knowledge is priceless! Maybe the final assessments above should ultimately be assigned to the public at large, AFTER we musicians have explored each of the 18,446,744,073,709,552,000 (18.4 Quintillion) individual possibilities.

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