The time of music reimagined: transcending temporal boundaries through music composition.

Abstract

This paper addresses phenomenological perspectives on musical experience through the exploration of temporal influences and techniques within music composition. Context, an original electroacoustic composition, serves as a case study to examine compositional techniques designed to transcend linear or physical perceptions of time, mirroring the humanistic lived experience more authentically. Through the use of nonlinear temporal frameworks in musical composition, composers can more accurately reflect on the human experience of time, resulting in positive musical outcomes for the listener, performer, and composer, which serves as the central hypothesis of this paper. These roles and interactions of the listener, performer, and composer are critical variables examined in this study with each influencing the nuanced perception of time within their respective musical context. By varying ensemble sizes and employing improvisational elements, the research highlights the role of embodiment, which significantly shapes the temporal perception in music. The findings of this study suggest that compositional methods dealing explicitly with temporality profoundly impact the subjective experiences of those engaging with the music, especially through the role of the composer. This study also concludes that the roles of listener, performer, and composer are intertwined, as even the listener plays an active role in performance through their embodiment of each unique listen to a particular piece of music, resulting in a compositional impression on their experience with the respective piece. While the results are exploratory rather than objectively definitive, this dissertation provides a foundational creative and theoretical framework for further interdisciplinary exploration into the relationship between philosophy, phenomenology, and music composition.