67States and events, movements and transformations of musical sound
evoke impressions of space and sensations of time. The musical space is,
however, a virtual space. In the motion of music, nothing is removed. Any
kind of spatial quality, rising and falling, movement and growth, shapes
and patterns, is called forth by temporal changes of sound qualities. The
virtual musical space is completely integrated with musical time. The
musical space is a virtual timespace.
The notion of musical timespace is coined by the American musicologist
Charles Seeger in the introduction to his Collected Studies in Musicology.
Seeger proposes a fundamental distinction between spacetime and time-
space. Spacetime comprises the everyday concepts of space and time and
the integration of space and time in the physical continuum. The concept
of Timespace refers to the integration of temporal and spatial factors
involved in the creation and consumption of products of human ingenuity.
Seeger explains that:
A single concept of timespace is, of course, quite different from two
separate concepts of space and of time. It would seem to conform,
however, more closely to the facts of direct music experience, in
which tonal and temporal factors can be apprehended by us in an
intimate fusion or integration that is quite different from the percep-
tion of the two as separate objects of attention. A concept of music
timespace is therefore advanced here as one quite as necessary to
study as the two conventionally accepted separate concepts of space
and of time (Seeger, 1977).In continuation of Seeger's line of thought, the investigation of the consti-
tutive dimensions and qualities of the musical timespace is the aim of the
following chapters.