I’ve been driving more than usual. Ideas come when I’m passing mile markers. I also get ideas when I take a shower, which makes me think about having someone drive me around in an RV with a shower — who knows what ideas may strike! But that’s not why we’re here today.

We’re here today so that I can throw out this idea: beat 4 is the most important one. Assuming a song is in 4/4, which so many are, and imagining a scenario where only one beat is made apparent (instead of all four beats, per usual) I would pick beat 4.

I choose beat 4 over beat 1 because beat 1 is too late to do anything, at least not until beat 2. Beat 2 is like eating only the cheese of a cheeseburger. Beat 3 isn’t all that important — sorry — because we all know its there, like breathing, and no one tells you to breathe unless you’re panicked. Ah, but beat 4: if you tell me where 4 is, I know where, approximately, beat 1 should land.
4 is the lift before the landing. And we MUST land together on 1. Tell us where 4 is and it’ll all work.

Remember, this all assumes we’re in 4/4.
In that case, 4 is the one I pick as most important.