Metaphors of Time in Music from a Pragmatic Point of View

Abstract

This paper inquiries into the effects of the diverse forms of musical time on the listener. Departing from its ontogenesis, we can find a first moment in the temporal games from early childhood. We will concentrate on the effects caused by the listening of diverse temporal forms in music, which refer neither to any content in its “original” sense –in Donald Davidson’s terms, linked here to Roger Scruton’s thesis on sound in opposition to tone– nor to any “extended” or more profound meaning identified with theories that link these experiences to ideas of time, but to associations or schema, common to all human activity. For this purpose, we will be aided by the theory of metaphor, its comparison to analogy, and specially, its dynamic position which emphasizes the importance of uses in a theory of meaning.