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2007-08-13: Metronome (Bicycle Ride)
Pulses
It's kind of from my idiolect so: the Quantum Beat Interval is the smallest measurable indivisible duration in a musical work. Like, in Row Your Boat it's the quarter note. Usually the QBI is whatever the smallest required notational element corresponds to, even in the most complicated pieces. Satie often composed without measures and thus time signatures, but his work is, for the most part, based on the quantum pulse as the relationships between note durations are still based on very straightforward ratios.
Space Frog's music however utilizes multiple simultaneous and unrelated pulse streams that do not divide evenly into each other. As a result, there is NO quantum beat unit: there is no regular interval on which all the notes fall.
This comic is in the following storylines:
- Variations
A long-running series, maybe the crux of the site. Reader submits a suggestion, and I draw three comics based on that suggestion. Originally all three had to start the same, but it evolved. - Summer of Keith
Good old Keith! I used his suggestions, and only his suggestions, for comics all summer long. It was a pretty nice summer.
This comic includes the contribution:
- Keith Prestwich suggested: Dr. Quickly invents a metronome that beats in reverse
ViewHide the text transcript of this comic.
Dr Quickly: I have invented a metronome that beats in reverse! Rabid: What good is that? It sounds kind of awful... <<kot kit kot kit gnib>> Dr Quickly: If there is music playing that you do not like, simply set the metronome to the same tempo and, voila! Cancellation via temporal negation!! <kot kit>> Rabid: Space Frog's music is complex and horrible so I will just set the metronome to the Quantum Beat Interval... Space Frog: IT HAS NO EFFECT ON MY MUSIC BECAUSE I USE IRRATIONAL NUMBERS IN MY "TIME SIGNATURES" Dr Quickly: His music is invulnerable? I'll just set this blender to "PULSE" and that should do the trick!! Dr Quickly: Oh no! The time-altering properties have changed the very fabric of the universe!! Space Frog's music is our new undercarriage!! Rabish: If I had known it was going to be this kind of party I would have stayed home.
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