I've actually been thinking for the last day about how to
explain this briefly and in a way that makes sense--I am not
sure if I can, but here goes:
 
Western Classical music tends to  use musical ideas or
motives that can be  expressed in one or two measures, and
developed in phrases of four or eight measures. This brevity
allows lots of possiblilities for building elaborate
structures based on many types variation, recurrance, and
repetition.
 
The rhythm of a complex meter often requires many more
measures, often in what would work out to be an odd compound
rhythm(like 11/16, or even 25/16) and even more problematic,
in odd numbers of measures--like 5.
 
This really is what limits your possibilities--you are sort
of following twisted road that is very quaint and interesting
for the first couple of trips, but after repeated trips,  but
you have to follow all the same  twists and turns or you end
up somewhere else.
 
A melissma actually could make the meter more ambiguous.
 
 
Hope this explains my position to all concerned.
 
Ted
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tim Romano wrote:
 > Melisma might open up the melodic possibilities.
 >
 > Ted Boucher wrote:
 >
 > > ... when you work with verse, you find that the more
complex a
 > > meter is the less  room  you have for melodic variation
...
 > >
 >
 
 
______________________________________________________
Get your free web-based email at http://www.xoom.com
Special clipart offer:  http://orders.xoom.com/email