I Don’t Hear It That Way: Temporal Parallax, Metal, and Music Theory’s “Listener”

Time, in music, may seem dramatically different to different listeners. This article collects instances of this observation in existing literature under the umbrella term “temporal parallax” and analyzes examples from metal in which metric cardinality and/or phase, tempo, isochronicity, and durational proportion may seem irreconcilably different depending on how one approaches the music. This article also argues for adopting a parallactic attitude in analysis—that is, a way of thinking about musical time that takes a plurality of perspectives on a single musical surface seriously. Ultimately, these analyses both concretize and pluralize music theory’s “listener.”