The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

don't encourage him

Quiet Farmer or I'll post the Green Acres theme in your honor

Whenever we see the 5/4 time signature, we start getting the vapors. 
It's usually "felt" as exactly this "dash, dash, dot, dot" that the performer describes. Two dotted quarter notes followed by two straight quarters. Since it's usually occurring in jazz anyhow, where note values are more or less subjective, it sort of has a built-in swinging groove. 

I think I've been mispronouncing her name for years.  

I've seen her on YouTube for I don't know how long.  This has been the first time I've ever heard someone pronounce her name.  

She's a completely different beast than Neil Peart, but she's very skillful and excels in odd time signatures, which will serve her well in Rush's music.  

I expect her to keep only the "necessary" portions of Peart's drum parts and the rest of the time to kind of do her own thing.  Either way, I think she'll fit right in with them, though some hardcore Peart/Rush fans might not like the differences.  Personally, I think one of the worst things bands can do is to try to replace a member and direct the replacement to do their best to duplicate the original.  It usually works so much better when the band accepts the fact that things will change, they'll sound different, and just let another person do their own thing.  

That said, she's steeped in Rush-adjacent prog-rock and so while I expect her to introduce a lot of her own parts, it's not like she's going to be a a totally different genre of drummer than Peart was.  

Nope. You're absolutely right. That's not a nerdy quibble a'tall! Whole and half-steps have meaning, and I mis-stated.
An understandable, but inexcusable mistake! =)
Now about the fact that a "perfect fourth" is considered a dissonant interval...

Welp, because that other group of nerds think us group of nerds should confine our music talk to here, I've moved the conversation here for continuation.  
A perfect fourth does have a sort of dissonance, I suppose, relative to the key you're in/your root note.  In the key of C, if you have any sort of C chord where C is your root, F, as the perfect 4th, does create a bit of tension.  But it's really subjective, in that it's just the inverse of perfect 5th going the other way.  i.e., C is the perfect 5th of F, so it really depends on the context it's used whether or not we hear those two notes, that interval, and perceive dissonance.  The fact the two tones play well with each other in any context is probably why the perfect 4th is used in "suspended" chords so often, which provides the opportunity to drop that 4th down to the 3rd and "resolve" the sound.  The 4th has some tension, but it's not ugly.  "Dissonant" might be a harsh word for that interval.  
Now, go up one half-step from the perfect 4th to the tri-tone, and buddy, you got yourself some ugly dissonance.*  Like a C root with an F#, for example.  



* Well.....the metal guys have gotten tons of mileage out of it, but I think there's a reason why that interval works so well for aggressive music whose entire ethos, lyrics, and vibes, is angst and dissonance.