No Subject

[hsut@purdue-ecn.ARPA (Tsun-Yuk Hsu)]

Subject: Time Signatures in Kate's music


	Well, this really isn't about time signatures, but...

	I don't think it's really fruitful to count the time signature
changes in Kate Bush's music. It's rather difficult, especially in
the slow, freely structured songs. In my opinion, one of the major
achievements of rock music was to free music from rigid time signatures.
Besides, change of time signatures is hardly a good measure of
the richness or complexity of a piece of music. There are very complex
pieces that don't change time signatures much, and vice versa. Besides,
with the relative freedom of notation in rock (except when you have
rigid dance beats), it's difficult to tell when the change in time
signatures takes place unless you have the score in front of you.

	A different kind of analysis that is done in much serious music
is thematic analysis. This is done at many different levels of detail,
from major themes and phrases to fragments of themes, and even intervals
(see analyses of things like Shostakovich's 10th Symphony). There are
analyses of motifs in Schoenberg's works that are done in excruciating
detail. Maybe when I feel eccentric some night, I'll make a detailed
thematic analysis of an appropriate Kate Bush song... (by the way,
old Genesis songs with their convoluted interrelationships of themes
would be good subjects for similar analyses)

	Some love-hounders have mentioned owning Kate Bush sheet music.
How can I get some (besides stealing it from you guys)? I would love
to see how Kate works some of her music. (I was classically trained,
so am somewhat more visually oriented when studying music than
aurally oriented.)


				Bill Hsu
				pur-ee!hsut