I have, as the title of this post suggests, a deep-seated and irrational annoyance at clichéd rhythmic patterns.

By clichéd rhythmic patterns, I mean two specific rhythmic patterns. These are as follows:

…also known as “knock knock-a knock knock… knock knock” or “shave and a haircut, two bits” (don’t look that up on Wikipedia like I did, you’ll fall into one of those Internet research rabbit-holes and end up reading about Denglisch when you’re supposed to be doing something else) and its best friend:

…also known as “bang, bang, bangbangbang, bangbangbangbang, bangbang” or “that annoying football rhythm”.

(Incidentally, you can tell how much these rhythms annoy me from the fact that I took the time to use Logic to actually write them out for inclusion in this blog post. And if they’re wrong… well, I don’t care, because I hate the fucking things.)

I have absolutely no idea why these two rhythmic phrases irritate me quite so much, but it is sufficient to put my teeth on edge any time someone uses them in any context, whether they’re drumming their fingers idly, knocking on my door or hitting a drum. Actually, that’s not quite true; in the case of the second one, I became particularly irritable towards it when I was a music teacher and the various little scrotes I was teaching thought it was both hilarious and incredibly clever to use it every time I asked them to make up a rhythm of their own. (It also, by tenuous extension, brought back painfully embarrassing memories of a year 7 music class back when I was a pupil, where my friends and I thought it would be awesome to recreate the Pink Panther theme using a set of Indian bells we had and then building the rest of our piece off that. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any further than the initial “ding ding-di-ding ding-di-ding” bit in our rehearsal, leading to a mortifyingly awful performance to the rest of the class that was almost completely improvised.)

But yes. Apart from that, I’m not entirely sure why these two rhythms irritate me quite so much, but they really do. I have a suspicion it may be something to do with my own attitude towards creativity and always wanting to see and hear new things. I feel a little uncomfortable when certain things repeat themselves — I feel odd practicing the same piano piece for several days in a row, for example, especially if people are listening; and I even feel peculiar if I watch a stand-up comedian’s DVD and I recognise some of the material they’ve used from previous shows. (Bill Bailey, one of my favourite comedians ever, is somewhat prone to this… though in his case he often starts off a routine in the same way as in a previous show and then veers off in a completely different direction, which is a very effective method of making the audience pay attention.)

With that in mind, then, I think my negative response to the two rhythms above may well be nothing more than me simply wishing that people would be a bit more creative when they’re banging on things rather than using these age-old rhythms that have seemingly been passed down from generation to generation for the sole purpose of irritating people like me.

Or there may simply not be a reason at all. It is an irrational annoyance, after all.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is very simple: if you bang on my door using one of the above rhythms, I will not be held responsible if I accidentally end up banging on your face using the other. With a hammer.