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Comment by darkerside | Hacker News Reader

There's an art to making the challenging accessible. Before listening to Take Five by Dave Brubek, I think most people never would have guessed that a 5/4 time signature could sound so natural.

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It's mostly only Western European / American popular music that (for some reason thaf I don't quite understand) is obsessed with 4/4. In many other cultures (e.g. Eastern European folk music, but many others as well), irregular meters are quite common.

5/4 isn't that challenging of a time signature. I would argue it's just uncommon and so most people associate it with Take Five. 3/4 was extremely popular in Europe for centuries and is not perceived as challenging.

5/4 is actually ambiguous because the "5" can be any of 3+2, 2+3, 2+1+2 etc. Similar issues for 7/4, etc. 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8 may have rhythmic variations too (e.g. the 3+3+2 tresillo rhythm common in rock-and-roll music) but these don't impact the metrical understanding of the music to anything near that extent.

I'm not saying it's THAT challenging. It's not 13/2, but it is 5/2. Most 5/2 songs will sound unnatural to most people . It's ironic to make a comment like that in the context of an article like this one.

How is it ironic? Not sure I follow.

The article is making the case for challenging music. You pointed out that Brubeck made challenging music (i.e. 5/4) accessible to most people. My argument is that this is a poor example as 5/4 is not that of a challenging time signature, and most non-musicians who heard Take Five probably didn't even perceive the uncommon 5/4, and just enjoyed the tune. 5/4 is popular in progressive rock, post rock, and electronic music. In my experience most people do not pay attention to that. Similar to 3/4 - it's an uncommon but easy time signature that people in the Western world have no problem with. Basically, there is no challenge.

5/4 is perfectly natural to a large percentage of people east of the Aegean. Almost the entirety of Anatolian folk music is 5/4 (or worse, 10/8, 9/2, etc.)

There’s nothing particularly unnatural or even unfamiliar about 5/4. Also, “Take Five” was not written by Dave Brubeck.

However he and his quartet were the first to lay down Golden Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZs

Yet another best thing Dave Brubeck never wrote.

You're technically right, if a bit pedantic. OTOH, I didn't say he wrote it.

As we all know, that’s the best kind of right. And, yes, you did. That’s what “by” means. But don’t worry, it’s a common error.

Performed by is a normal usage as well. See every pop musician who doesn't write their own music, performs it, and is commonly known by every human person to have ownership of that song.

"I Will Always Love You" BY Whitney Houston

"Fuck You" BY Cee Lo Green

I win. Try again next time. Bye.

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