Rhythm and Movement

Chapter 2 argues that to hear musical grouping involves experiencing sounds as produced by extra-musical events that include movement, and that we can therefore experience literal movement in rhythm. In this account, experiencing sounds as grouped is to experience them as apparently produced by a sequence of extra-musical events that are related as parts of an ongoing process. Grouping, the chapter argues, is central to our experience of rhythm in music, so understanding the role of extra-musical events in our experience of grouping is central to understanding that experience. Movement heard in music can be literal, perceived (or apparently perceived) in the music. This account is of the content of one element of our experience of music and rhythm—our experience of music may be related to movement in other ways, for example through metaphorical content. Indeed, it might have metaphorical content in virtue of having content concerning literal movement.