ies at least five parameters: contour, width, distance, timbre, and rhythmic level (pp. 143-153).
Clifton describes musical surfaces with various kinds of texture. An undifferentiated surface is char-
acterized by absence of movement and absence of contrast in dynamics, such as the beginning of
Ligeti’s orchestral piece Atmospheres, where the particles of sound are absorbed in an amorphous
surface, and time seems to be suspended. Another work by Ligeti, the choral piece Lux Aeterna,
displays a surface with gradual motion and variation of texture, leading to events which stand out
and create depth. In a section of Berg’s Lyric suite for string quartet, the four voices move rapidly in
a directionless ”flickering turmoil”, which creates the impression of a surface in energetic motion (pp.
155-171).
In his paragraph on depth in the musical space, Clifton discusses differences between visual space
and musical space, and provides descriptions of experienced distance in the auditory space. He
presents illustrative examples, such as the experience of distance evoked by the hunting horns in
Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and the trumpet calls in Mahler’s Second Symphony (pp. 182-186).
However, he does not elaborate on the basic spatial features, description of foreground and back-
ground, approaching and receding, focus and fringe in the musical space.
Time in motion
Clifton states that the experience of time arises from the experience of motion and change. Events,
as lived through by people, define time (pp. 54-55, 114). This implies that knowing, feeling, and will-
ing influence the experience of time. Time is not an abstract continuum flowing by in the physical
world. Time is ”the experience of human consciousnes in contact with change” (p. 56). Music pres-
ents or evokes time, it is always coming into being (p. 81, 223).^19 Similar to his 1976 article, Clifton
refers to Husserl’s description of time-consciousness as a field of presence, which encompasses re-
tention, perception, and protention. While we listen to a tone in a melody, we retain the previous tone
in consciousness, and anticipate the next tone. This is the basis for the experience of continuity.
Of particular interest for the practice of phenomenology are Clifton’s considerations of continuity
and duration. Following Husserl, he points out that continuity is not established by adding separate
events. The experience of continuity is primary, permitting us to recognize melody as a coherent
succession of tones, which influence each other (p. 95). Similarly, we do not experience duration by
adding the durations of every single perceived element. The experience of a field of presence is pri-
mary, and the presence of a musical element is perceived as embedded in a duration (p. 100).
The consideration of a single enduring tone, prolonged without changes of dynamics, timbre or
vibrato, incites Clifton to devise perceptual variations. One can direct consciousness toward the tone
in various ways, focusing on the tone’s top edge or its bottom edge, its pitch, its overtone content, its
intensity, or its timbre. It is also possible to change temporal focus and listen for the past, the pres-
ent, or the future of the enduring one. For example, listening with curious anticipation for the contin-
uation of the tone, or desperately hoping that it will stop very soon. Finally, by an act of volition it is
possible to focus on something else, relegating the enduring tone to the fringe of consciousness (p.
97). These changes of focus correspond to phenomenological variations proposed by Ihde.
Listening to music evokes many kinds of processes related to time; beginning and ending, con-
trast and continuity, acceleration and deceleration, interruption, insertions, extensions, expansions,
contractions and overlaps. (p. 82). Clifton exemplifies these processes with numerous analyses of
music, from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin to Mahler, Debussy, Bartok, Webern, Boulez and
Ligeti (pp. 83-124).
19 Cf. Ihde’s comment on the creation of music, this chapter, p. 8.