Feeling Meter

Abstract

This article explores the nature of metrical knowledge underlying Justin London's many-meters hypothesis. It argues that meter is a form of culturally situated kinesthetic knowledge, or a knowledge of what it feels like to move to music in a particular way. This reframing of meter focuses on its technical and bodily dimensions, which links the analysis of meter with issues of social inclusion and exclusion, of learning and unlearning, and of habit and novelty. The article illustrates the implications of this approach with examples from recent progressive metal, where musicians manipulate the backbeat to present listeners with affordances for the enactment of different forms of time.