Being Time: Case Studies in Musical Temporality

Being Time invites a deep consideration of the personal experience of temporality in music, focusing on the perceptual role of the listener. Through individual case studies, this book centers on musical works that deal with time in radical ways. These include pieces by Morton Feldman, James Saunders, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Ryoji Ikeda, Toshiya Tsunoda, Laurie Spiegel, and André O. Möller. Multiple perspectives are explored through a series of encounters, initially between an individual and a work and subsequently with each author’s varying experiences of temporality. The authors compare their responses to features such as repetition, speed, duration, and scale from a perceptual standpoint, drawing in reflections on aspects such as musical memory and anticipation. The observations made in this book focus on the listening experience, rather than on established modes of musical analysis. This shift in focus makes the text accessible and relevant to readers who are interested in exploring issues of temporality from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives.