When you're watching the news and hearing students chanting "We hate nick clegg hes a tory too" and then you think, why on earth are they chanting that in 7/8 time??? It would sound so much better and be so much more memorable in 4/4 time...

.......or when you rush to the piano humming a note to try to work out what pitch the Hoover/washing machine/doorbell is........

or when your facebook status update reads "My cat sang a descending perfect 4th today (key of F major)"

Hah, my current facebook status is actually a complaint about the 7/8 time signature in the chant

When I was a vacation student working in a lab (over 25 years ago) I spent a few weeks making a series of measurements. Every few minutes I had to change a component, start a sequence and then wait while the computer-controlled apparatus made a number of mechanical movements, then collect the printout. Finally I got to analyse the results. But the series of clicks made by the apparatus went

"One two and three four one two (rest, rest)"
"one two and three four One and two three"

Except it wasn't QUITE in strict time so I had to do a bit of rubato to sing "La ci darem" to the clicks!

(all the while trying to beat my record for how many rotations I could do on the swivel chair)

I also try and fit windscreen wiper beats to whatever music I'm listening to non the way to work... and does anyone here work in an open plan office and try and fit tunes to slightly-out-of-phase telephone rings ?

If anyone else can come up with a good method of helping my husband to recognise time signatures, do share!

Take the music thing too far???
Not possible!!!

...when your musical friends and you are trying to work out the pitch a piece of wall makes when you hit in and your non-musical friends are slowly backing away from you

Or when you're watching Strictly Come Dancing with your parents and best friends and you ALL start shouting loudly at the TV when they start dancing a waltz in 4/4

I did that too. Harrumph.

So did Elaine Paige in ITT ! She was VERY puzzled. And Brendan said during the results show that Michelle deserved a lot of credit for dancing a waltz to foxtrot music.

V V glad I wasn't testing my husband on time signatures on that occasion - I keep talking about which dances are in which rhythm but never remember when I'm actually watching the show.