Your foot taps along to the bridge of Myrath's Tales of the Sands, gets about two bars in, and quietly files for early retirement. It sounds like some ancient Tunisian meter handed down through nineteen generations of oud players who all counted in prime numbers. It sounds like you need a physics degree and a prayer mat to play it.
Plot twist: it's 4/4. Plain, boring, drives-a-station-wagon 4/4. This clip is my guitar take on that bridge section, and the whole point is showing you how Myrath dresses up a completely straight time signature in enough oriental phrasing that your ears file a missing-persons report for the downbeat.
How this 4/4-in-disguise trick works
The secret isn't the meter – it's the phrasing. Myrath takes a normal four-beat bar and accents it in groups that don't line up with the beat: a little cluster of notes here, a syncopated stab there, an oriental scale run that starts on an off-beat and lands somewhere your brain didn't book a room for. Your ear naturally tries to hear accent = downbeat, so when the accents wander, the barline appears to wander with them. But subdivide the whole thing in steady sixteenth notes and count 1-e-and-a, and every bar closes on time, every single time. Nothing is missing; the melody is just wearing a costume over an honest 4/4 skeleton. It's the exact reason understanding what a time signature actually is matters more than being able to name a scary one.
The useful takeaway: when a riff sounds "impossible," don't panic-count in 7 or 11. First subdivide against a steady pulse and find where the real bar resets. Nine times out of ten the mystery is melodic rhythm played against a rock-solid grid, not an exotic meter – and the fix is a metronome, not a nervous breakdown.
So yes, you can absolutely learn this without relocating to a monastery. Grab the PDF and Guitar Pro on Patreon, and count with me until your foot cancels its retirement paperwork.