Polycardinalities and Emergent Complexity in Math Rock and Math Metal

Music in which two or more patterns occur at the same time has long fascinated theorists. In this video essay, we introduce the term polycardinality to formalize this space. In particular, we focus on situations in math metal and math rock in which patterns—of rhythm, pitch, text, articulation, and other musical dimensions—are mapped onto each other rather than being simply superimposed.