Throughout grammar school, I took piano lessons, and most of the classical music I played was in four-four time, with a few pieces in three-four and six-eight time. In fifth grade, I ditched the piano for the drums, and again most of the rock and jazz pieces I learned were in four-four time, with a few pieces in three-four and six-eight time. This became dull.

In seventh grade, while listening for the first time to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s and Tim Rice’s rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” with a friend who had just started high school, I noticed that some of the music sounded rhythmically weird. In a bored voice, my friend told me that the song to which we were listening was in five-four time, and that a later song was in seven-four time.

I was fascinated.

When I mentioned this discovery to my drum teacher, he played me the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, pointing out its five-four meter.

And I was hooked.

Not on Tchaikovsky, whose music is a bit too bombastic for my taste, but on these unusual time signatures.

But most of my musical mentors throughout high school and college didn’t quite know what to make of my interest in these meters. They kept trying to steer me into writing music using more traditional meters, arguing that no one would be able to play music that didn’t use traditional time signatures. These mentors became further dismayed when I discovered how composers used different time signatures throughout the same piece of music.

I cheerfully ignored much of this advice. After all, Stravinsky, Copeland, Bartok, Bernstein, BRUBECK, Sondheim, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and many other composers/arrangers used unusual meters to great effect, so why couldn’t I? So I experimented, and most performers rose to the challenge without much fuss.

Unless they were affiliated with elite music conservatories.

One summer, while attending a festival for elite musicians, I asked the jazz ensemble to read a piece I had composed. It was harmonically straightforward, but much of it was written in five-four time, with a couple of eleven-eight measures thrown in. Mutinous muttering swelled as the parts were handed out, and while they did read through the piece, we parted on dissonant terms. Yet a year later, a university jazz band consisting of only one music major (me) performed the piece with great gusto in front of an enthusiastic audience.

For the next 25 years, I focused most of my energy towards supporting groups and organizations to become better at motivating people, resolving conflicts, managing diversity, and planning for the future. Shortly after the turn of the millennium, however, I arranged an American folk tune in seven-eight time for a pick-up choir of visually-impaired singers. After introducing myself and the piece to the audience, I asked the audience for their patience as I conveyed a message to the choir.

“One-two one-two one-two-three one-two one-two one-two-three,” I chanted into the microphone.

Everyone laughed, and the piece went well.

Since moving to Columbia, Missouri, in 2006, I have sung in four choirs, and times have changed. Conductors are far more conversant with musical styles ranging from traditional and contemporary classical to jazz and gospel. They find ways to connect warm-up exercises to the music we’re learning to sing. And they are more confident around those unusual meters.

This confidence communicates to the singers. During last Monday’s rehearsal of a choir that requires no audition to join, the conductor, in a matter-of-fact voice, introduced us to a portion of a piece we will be performing this summer.

“One-two one-two one-two-three one-two one-two one-two-three,” she chanted at us, and we launched into the section as if this rhythm was an old friend.

Which, for many of us, it now is.