Before I get to the specifics I'd like to try to put into words the musical events (epiphanies?) that I listen for: you should know their whatness.

Despite my musical background (started off with violin and sax, then played guitar for over twenty years with almost ten years of jazz improvisation formal training), I almost never think about music in an analytical way. I don't really care about key, time signature, major, minor, etc. No, I think about music visually. Yep, when I close my eyes...pictures appear. Call them musical landscapes.

Warning: this is a little weird.

The bits of a tune that remain 'constant', that form the foundation (rhythm guitar, bass, any kind of repeat) are seen as the surface of a body of water. This surface can have all sorts of textures: smooth & glassy (or mat), rough, choppy, wavy, jagged - depending on what the foundation is doing.

The melodic parts of the music show up as lines stretching over the lake's surface. These lines can form any and all shapes in three-dimensional space and can be as close to or as far away from the surface as 'necessary' (things like tension, release & energy of the music have influence over this) and project shadows down to it.

Note: I told you this was weird.

Depending upon what's going on in the music, any element can switch its function from 'foundation' to 'line' or vice versa.

Note: this does not involve drugs of any kind.

That's it. Well...almost. What's missing is what makes these things 'good'. What I tend to listen for are scenarios where the elements interact with one another - where the shadow(s) projected down upon the surface change the surface in some way.

Ok, back to earth for some concrete examples (sort of).

Since the Rush catalog is quite large, and since I've only got one more pencil left in my Dixon/Ticonderoga box, I'll have to distill the songlist down to a manageable length.

One title: "La Villa Strangiato" from Hemispheres.

La Villa Strangiato

Subtitled "An Exercise in Self-Indulgence", this tune clocks in at 9 minutes and 35 seconds of pure rock instrumental fun.

After a short Spanish guitar introduction an electric guitar arpeggio repeats (the 'surface'). Various synth figures and orchestral bells 'comment' on the guitar. The 'surface' gains some texture as a repeated hi-hat pattern joins in to boost the intensity. The bass jumps in with the hi-hat (with kick drum soon to follow) to imply a space for some power chords. A few cycles later, when the tension is nearly unbearable, those chords do show up...setting off the first (of several) mini-climaxes of the song.