Rhythmus und Zeitwahrnehmung in der Musik

We discuss Husserl's seminal text `Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness' and its influence on musicians and composers in the 20th century. We then take an in-depth look into his notion of retentions and protentions that originate from the now-point and draw important consequences for the study of rhythm and timing in music. For example, we find a strong correlation between rhythms placed within a metrical framework and the perception of beats and metre. After the application of Husserl's theory to music composition one finds that every monophonic line within a musical metre will generate a unique polyphonic score of retentional rhythms. It is the generation and analysis of those retentional rhythms that make a unique contribution to the field. In addition, we analyse the common notion of `time standing still', timelessness, in relation to the cognition of musical rhythms and higher level timing structures.