Herbie Hancock

Suppose you're listening to Chameleon by Herbie Hancock. You might start tapping your index finger on your knee the same way you would for virtually any song in the pantheon of western music: ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT.

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT.

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT.

Along each stretch from one to eight, you might hear the single strike of a snare drum. But that snare drum wouldn't coincide with any of your eight finger-to-knee taps.

You might realize you have to double the speed of your taps, so now you're tapping to 16 over the same duration of time as when you were tapping to 8. In other words, twice as fast.

You might see that the snare drum happens on tap #4 of each 1-16 run, rather than directly on tap #2 of what your brain might perceive to be a 1-8 run if you weren't paying rapt attention. And you might call that little tick of musical tension, where the snare is "off" by an increment that straddles the line between shocking and imperceptible, one of the things that make life such a potentially Dionysian trip. Just stay curious. And listen to great music.