Techniques of Polytempic Polymicrotonal Composition

  What is Polytempo?   What is tempo? First of all, we must understand what tempo is. So I will explore this topic as deliberately, naively, and as guilelessly as I possibly can, to ask the most basic questions without the pomp, rhetoric, and expectations of my doctorate, telling both me that I damn well know what tempo is, when in fact, do I? Jean-Baptiste Lully thought he knew what tempo was when he accidentally crushed his toe with his staff, pounding the tempo onto the floor while conducting Te Deum . Lully was 'tempoed' to death. There is no more concrete example of tempo than this. Now imagine three more Lullys pounding the floor at different rates of speed with their staffs. This is polytempo, and hopefully not the accidental polydeaths of the three additional Lullys.  Today's version of this would not be so much the conductor, but perhaps a drummer? Or more precisely, the click-track pounds the tempo into the ears of hapless musicians via headphones for them to p...