>I've noticed that for most people, the melody occupies the foreground,
quoted 5 lines and the rhythm the background. If you can reverse this you'll hear music>and the rhythm the background. If you can reverse this you'll hear music
>in a radically different way. For me this occured when I was recording a
>lot of rap music, and I was listening to JUST the rhythm tracks of early
>70s James Brown, to the point where I could hear the squeaking of the
>kick drum's pedal. That changed the way everything sounds.
What about when sounds serve both a melodic and rythmic function? For lack of a better example, the original version of Ventolin has those twisted metallic sounds which form a sort of melody but are quite percussive in nature. I frequently find myself humming (probably not the right word) rhythmic elements such as hi-hat lines or other percussion sequences; frequently they form a melody of their own, especially if the sounds aren't loops.