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Two hands, two clocks. When do they meet?

Left hand — 3
Right hand — 2
Together
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one bar, cut into 6 ticks

watch for this

3 against 2 needs a 6-tick grid and meets once. LCM(3,2) = 6, gcd(3,2) = 1.

Ask them to predict before you play it. Almost everyone guesses the hands meet more than once. They meet exactly gcd(3, 2) = 1 time — on the very first tick, and never again inside the bar. That restlessness is the whole reason drummers practise it.

The full lesson behind this: The drum kit →