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