Regardless of the philosophy of it (which is certainly interesting), many pieces uncontroversially start with a rest. If the first bar doesn’t start on a note,

Regardless of the philosophy of it (which is certainly interesting), many pieces uncontroversially start with a rest. If the first bar doesn’t start on a note, then the piece starts on a rest. You could argue that the first bar is actually shorter than all the following ones and only starts on the first note, but… no one thinks like that that I ever heard of