This paper argues that music offers experiences of change that are at odds with our common understanding of time. Specifically, I question the widespread belief that forward motion is a condition of musical temporality.
I approach this issue through recent metaphor theory. Theorists such as Lakoff and Johnson argue that our motional concepts of time and change are metaphorical, but that they are also necessary and unavoidable, a manifestation of our psychological proclivity for grasping abstract concepts in terms of concrete, physical experience. I accept the metaphorical basis of musical experience, but argue that forward motion is only one of many possible 'bodily' metaphors for grasping change. Music evokes a range of such metaphors; motion is not ever-present but intermingles with metaphors of heat, light, weight, and tension. To see motion as an inevitable correlate of all change is to impose a second-level metaphor on changing experiences that may already have an adequate non-motional metaphorical conceptualization.
A number of factors explain our tendency to prioritize motion over other metaphors for musical temporality. Not least of these is time itself, which encourages an unduly linear view of the faculties (memory and expectation) underlying our experience of change.