Recently I’ve been attending a lot of gym classes and the counts are always 4, 8, 16 etc. It made me wonder why music is set out this way and not in 5’s and 10’s like I would expect. Or am I missing something obvious?
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Why would you “expect” it to be 5 and 10?
It’s worth noting that 5 and 10 are only “natural” to us because we have 5 fingers on each hand (10 in total).
I’d argue the counts 4,8,16 are common for basically the same reason those numbers are common in computing: splitting things into two is the simplest way to split things up. Makes it very easy to have units that each contain some sort of contrast within themselves. You can have a question/answer, a busy/quiet section, a “happy”/“sad” dichotomy. And even more complicated mixtures of some or all of those.
But other counts are also very common. 3,6,9,12. Even 5 and 7. They all serve different purposes for how you’re creating contrast in your music.
It’s worth noting that 5 and 10 are only “natural” to us because we have 5 fingers on each hand (10 in total).
I’d argue the counts 4,8,16 are common for basically the same reason those numbers are common in computing: splitting things into two is the simplest way to split things up. Makes it very easy to have units that each contain some sort of contrast within themselves. You can have a question/answer, a busy/quiet section, a “happy”/“sad” dichotomy. And even more complicated mixtures of some or all of those.
But other counts are also very common. 3,6,9,12. Even 5 and 7. They all serve different purposes for how you’re creating contrast in your music.
It’s worth noting that 5 and 10 are only “natural” to us because we have 5 fingers on each hand (10 in total).
I’d argue the counts 4,8,16 are common for basically the same reason those numbers are common in computing: splitting things into two is the simplest way to split things up. Makes it very easy to have units that each contain some sort of contrast within themselves. You can have a question/answer, a busy/quiet section, a “happy”/“sad” dichotomy. And even more complicated mixtures of some or all of those.
But other counts are also very common. 3,6,9,12. Even 5 and 7. They all serve different purposes for how you’re creating contrast in your music.
Even numbers are kinda the expectation in music, giving you a clean onbeat-offbeat-onbeat-offbeat tempo that keeps the whole thing nice and cyclical. Generally, any odd-beat tempo song is doing that on purpose for one reason or another- 3/4 time is known as “Waltz time” because the extra off beat lets dancers do a little flourish or something else interesting with the dance. One of the only songs I know in 5/4 time is, of all things [the mission impossible theme](https://youtu.be/XAYhNHhxN0A), though I’m not good enough at music theory to analyze how that helps the song capture the peculiar sound and vibe it does.
Even numbers are kinda the expectation in music, giving you a clean onbeat-offbeat-onbeat-offbeat tempo that keeps the whole thing nice and cyclical. Generally, any odd-beat tempo song is doing that on purpose for one reason or another- 3/4 time is known as “Waltz time” because the extra off beat lets dancers do a little flourish or something else interesting with the dance. One of the only songs I know in 5/4 time is, of all things [the mission impossible theme](https://youtu.be/XAYhNHhxN0A), though I’m not good enough at music theory to analyze how that helps the song capture the peculiar sound and vibe it does.
Even numbers are kinda the expectation in music, giving you a clean onbeat-offbeat-onbeat-offbeat tempo that keeps the whole thing nice and cyclical. Generally, any odd-beat tempo song is doing that on purpose for one reason or another- 3/4 time is known as “Waltz time” because the extra off beat lets dancers do a little flourish or something else interesting with the dance. One of the only songs I know in 5/4 time is, of all things [the mission impossible theme](https://youtu.be/XAYhNHhxN0A), though I’m not good enough at music theory to analyze how that helps the song capture the peculiar sound and vibe it does.
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