Working with both bar and time rulers visible

When I’m working, I like to work with both the time ruler and the bars ruler visible — like this:

And I recently put my finger on precisely why, so I thought I would share it!

What I’ve realized is that the time lane grounds me in the song, and the bars lane grounds me in the composition.

When I’m thinking about bars, I’m thinking about the structure of the song. What is the pacing like through each part of the song? How many bars of this, how many bars of that?

And when I can also see at a glance where I am in the song the time-wise, it helps me to remain grounded in the song’s narrative arc. A related but separate concept. I can infer this to some degree from the section and inflection markers that I always drop in my sessions, but it’s very helpful as I’m working on, say, chorus 2, to have it in the back of my mind that i’m two minutes and ten seconds into a four-minute song.

Zoom in, zoom out — jamie