YYZ

This article covers the song by the Canadian rock band Rush; for the airport with the IATA code YYZ, see Toronto-Pearson Airport .

YYZ is an instrumental track from the Canadian rock band Rush from their 1981 album Moving Pictures . It was part of the band's live performances for decades and was nominated for a Grammy in 1982 in the Best Rock Instrumental category. The title processes and refers to the Toronto airport identification code in Morse code.

Part A

Musical implementation of the YYZ code through drums as well as bass and electric guitar

Part A of the song takes up this rhythmic pattern of letters in Morse code and varies it musically.

part B

Part B begins with a two-bar riff dominated by sixteenths in unison with bass and guitar. The meter changes from 5/4 to 4/4 time. The riff / motif, repeated and shifted up by a third, takes up a total of 16 bars.

Four bars of the bass run from YYZ ( audio sample ^{? / I} )

In the following section, bass and guitar are separated from each other. While the bass varies the preceding motif harmonically and rhythmically in moving eighth notes and sixteenth notes ( audio sample ^{? / I} ), the guitar brings an independent, rhythmically slower figure. The up to now “straight / straight” and inconspicuous drum accompaniment changes to a more swing-accentuated, dotted style of playing ( audio sample ^{? / I} ).

Emergence

The band dedicated the track to their home airport Toronto-Pearson , whose IATA code is YYZ. In a documentary, the band describes that when they came back from a tour and saw the transmitter code, they knew they were at home. That was what inspired her to write the piece.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Documentation: Rush - Beyond the Lighted Stage