A similar structure can be discovered if we describe theexperience of a melody. Each note in a melody has a musical qualitywhich depends on the place of the note in a sequence of notes. Wedo not hear a note as an objective frequency but as the musicalquality that fits in at that point in the melody. Indeed moving thewhole tune up an octave does not change the experience of themelody, although the objective frequency of every note is changed.Each note is heard in the context of the previous (and anticipated)notes. That is, the previous notes are still present toconsciousness when we hear the current note, otherwise it wouldn'tbe this note with this musical quality in this tune.
If we heard every note in isolation from the other notes of amelody, we couldn't experience a melody. That is, if ourconsciousness were punctual, each note would have a life of its ownand wouldn't be part of a tune. We can only hear a tune if theprevious notes somehow remain present while we are listening to thecurrent note. This remaining-present is what Husserl callsretention. Similarly the note can only be experienced in itsmelodic quality if some future sequence of notes is at leastvaguely anticipated in protention.
Imagine "God" listening in on a performance. "God" eternally hearsall notes simultaneously. But this is not a melody, but a massivechord (or dischord!) Hence "God", not being capable of temporalexperience, could never have the experience of hearing a tune (noteven Gregorian chant.) [We are not speaking here of any real "God", but only of an abstract concept of a perfect entity to whom all moments are simultaneous.]
If everything we experience is actually present in the now,then either we could only hear one tone at a time, and so neverhear a melody, or else we must hear the one note while recollectingthe previous sequence. But recollection cannot solve our problemhere. Imagine a conductor who asked you to recollect say, threenote, and then played the fourth! Clearly this would not be theexperience of a melody. Alternatively, if the conductor had nofaith in your ability at retention and tried to solve the problemby playing all four notes at the same time, you would still nothear the melody. That is, the retained notes are neither actuallypresent in the same mode as the current note, nor are theyrecollected. The experience cannot be adequately described as theaddition to the actually present note of something else which isactually present, either another sounding note or anotherrecollected note.
The previous notes which are retained are the self-same notesthat we previously heard. I don't mean that they are copies ofthem, reproductions of them or representations of them. I mean thatit is exactly the same note which was once sounding which is nowexperienced as present although past, indeed present as past.
The current note sinks into the past and is modified in thistemporal fashion. It is now experienced as that past note whichwhen it was current followed the previous note which is now thefurther-past, that which was already past when the previous notewas actual. The retained past is not just homogenous, it has alayered structure with each phase being experienced as the past ofanother past. In a four note tune, when the fourth note is current,the second note is experienced not just as past, like the thirdnote, but as the third note's immediate past.
Each note in a melody and each word in a sentence are, ofcourse, themselves enduring, temporal objects in their own right,with a beginning, a middle and an end, and these phases need to bedescribed in a similar manner. The whole note runs off as a unity,but it is the unity of a continuum, for even in the past the notenever becomes a static object. Every retained now is a retentionof previous nows, and each new moment is a modification of all ofthe previous retentions. Each note is a running-off continuum. Amelody, as a continuum of notes, is then a continuum of continua.Time itself is, as Husserl puts it, "a continuum of continua." Aswe experience time in consciousness, it is a continual sinking-away, not a series of discrete points, although it is difficult forus to avoid this false impression when we try to put the phenomenoninto words. There is a privileged point, the now, but consciousnessis not restricted to this point; it embraces the whole articulatedtemporal structure. Indeed, if consciousness were not temporal inthis way experience would not be possible