A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn.
The quarter note The quarter note is the pulse we instinctively nod our heads to. Your heartbeat is already playing along. Sometimes it’s in plain sight, as with boots-‘n’-cats dance music. Other times it’s suggested via syncopation; James Brown was a master of this (see “Mother Popcorn”). In reggae it’s oft omitted but omnipresent. The quarter note is there even in the trickiest compound meters. It’s an analytical tool to remember to not be analytical and instead to feel and communicate.
