How Switching Between Half-Time and Double-Time Rhythms Makes Emo Music So Angsty

Cory Arnold of 12Tone, the quick-talking, artistic music theorist, explained how the Emo musical genre uses half-time and double-time rhythms interchangeably to fully reflect confused teenage angst. Arnold further notes that when lyrics combine with tempo modulation, emotional tension is created, culminating in an eventual and necessary release.

Emo spoke to that confusion in a unique way, making sense of the senselessness by embracing the duality of teenage hood, where everything is so important but nothing really matters, and that ethos can be found not just in its lyrics, but in its rhythms as well.