Experiencing Musical Time

Abstract Belief in music’s ability to shape our experience of time can be seen in the plethora of temporal metaphors and descriptors used by scholars, performers, and listeners alike. Experiencing Musical Time tackles the question of temporal experiences with music through an interdisciplinary lens, weaving together research in psychology and neuroscience with theories and analyses of music. Connecting the language and metaphors that emerge in discussions and theories of musical time with time perception research enables new insights into how musical structures shape meaning and temporal experience. In this book, Knowles argues that musical time emerges from the interaction between shifting musical parameters and the perception and conceptualization of temporality. Musical time is treated not as a monolithic construction, but rather as a constantly fluctuating aspect of musical experience. From minute changes in response to subtle shifts in the musical surface to the extremes of altered temporal states like timelessness, Knowles examines how musical parameters interact with a listener’s stylistic familiarity and embodied response to shape diverse experiences of musical time.