this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
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You refer to 4/4 as the default?
I don’t refer to 4/4 at all.
I refer first to the whole note, existing independently of any time signature. In fact, you don’t even have to assign a rhythmic value to it for now; the purpose of this exercise is to learn why the rhythmic names of the notes are what they are.
Next, envision the half note. So named because they are exactly half the value of the whole note. Two half notes = one whole note. With me so far?
Next, we move to the note in question - the quarter note. So named because it takes four of them to equal the rhythmic value of the whole note.
Now this is important: You originally called it the “fourth note.” So take note: do not confuse the word “fourth” here to mean “fourth in a series,” or “the fourth beat of the measure,” because that’s not the correct application of the word. “Fourth” in this context is synonymous with “quarter.” So a “fourth note” as you call it is so named because it’s one-fourth (¼) the value of the whole note.
This is about as EILI5 as I can make this.
Why divide rhythmic values at their center and not at the third or fifth?
I wish you and your teachers the best of luck in your musical studies.
I just avoid notation.