Music semiology (

semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

) is the study of signs as they pertain to

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

on a variety of levels.

Overview

Following

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,Kofi Agawu adopts the idea of musical semiosis being introversive or extroversive—that is, musical signs within a text and without. "Topics", or various musical conventions (such as horn calls, dance forms, and styles), have been treated suggestively by Agawu, among others. The notion of

gesture A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, o ...

is beginning to play a large role in musico-semiotic enquiry.

There are strong arguments that music inhabits a semiological realm which, on both
ontogenetic Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the st ...
and
phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
levels, has developmental priority over verbal language.

Writers on music semiology include Kofi Agawu (on topical theory,

Schenkerian analysis Schenkerian analysis is a method of analyzing tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal is to demonstrate the organic coherence of the work by showing how it relates to an abstracted deep structure, the ''Ursatz ...

), Robert S. Hatten (on topic, gesture), Raymond Monelle (on topic, musical meaning),

Jean-Jacques Nattiez Jean-Jacques Nattiez (; born December 30, 1945 in Amiens, France) is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of musicology at the Université de Montréal. He studied semiology with Georges Mounin and Jean Molino and music semiolo ...

(on introversive taxonomic analysis and ethnomusicological applications), Anthony Newcomb (on narrativity),

Thomas Turino Thomas Turino (born December 12, 1951) is an American ethnomusicologist and author of several textbooks in the field, most notably the popular introductory book ''Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation''. His interests include the grow ...

(applying the semiotics of

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for ...

), and Eero Tarasti (generally considered the founder of musical semiotics).

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

, himself a semiotician and skilled

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, self-taught, user-generated, DIY, and hobbyist. History H ...

pianist, wrote about music in some of the essays collected in ''Image, Music, Text'' and ''The Responsibility of Forms'', as well as in the essay "Eiffel Tower", though he did not consider music to be a semiotic system. Signs, meanings in music, happen essentially through the connotations of sounds, and through the social construction, appropriation and amplification of certain meanings associated with these connotations. The work of Philip Tagg (''Ten Little Tunes'', ''Fernando the Flute'', ''Music’s Meanings'') provides one of the most complete and systematic analysis of the relation between musical structures and connotations in western and especially popular, television and

film music A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

. The work of

Leonard B. Meyer Leonard B. Meyer (January 12, 1918 – December 30, 2007) was a composer, author, and philosopher. He contributed major works in the fields of aesthetic theory in music, and of compositional analysis. Career Meyer studied at Columbia Univ ...

in ''Style and Music'' theorizes the relationship between ideologies and musical structures and the phenomena of style change, and focuses on

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

as a case study.

Fred Lerdahl Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl (born March 10, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin) is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and cogn ...

and Ray Jackendoff analyze how music is structured like a language with its own semiotics and syntax.

References

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Overview

References

Further reading