(From a lecture delivered at a meeting of the Semiotic Society of America.)
Music, which, according to Umberto Eco, is “purely
syntactic,” with no “apparent semantic depth,” presents very special problems,
both for a semiotics of music per se and a general semiotics capable of
including musical “signification” within its scope. One does not have to fully agree with Eco to
see the difficulty. Few today would contend
that any music can be “pure,” totally free of cultural content, context and
connotation. Nevertheless, the failure
of anything we might want to call “music,” in and of itself, without the
assistance of verbal language, to
clearly and unequivocally represent (i.e., “denote”) some generally agreed upon
referent or concept, has time and again posed what seems an insurmountable
barrier to any theory of musical semiosis.
The apparent lack of a clearly defined musical signified which
could be paired with a corresponding, clearly articulated, signifier,
has created especially serious problems for those attempting to work from the
model outlined by Saussure. This
difficulty, coupled with the tendency to associate his approach generally with
what has been criticized as “the linguistic model,” has discouraged
semioticians of music from pursuing Saussure’s line of thought.
Back
to Linguistics?
If we must insist, as now seems patently clear,
that neither a semiotics of music nor semiotics-in-general can be based on one
to one correspondences with structural linguistics, we must also acknowledge
the serious difficulties involved in any attempt to bypass such methodology
altogether. In the words of Goran
Sonesson, “numerous exponents of other semiotic domains have marked their
distance [from] the linguistic model, but this has often meant a return to a
pre structuralist (paradoxically called poststructuralist), and even pre
theoretical, stage of reflection . . .”
[from “The Linguistic Model Fallacy,” in Paul Bouissac,
"Encyclopedia of Semiotics"]
Thus, while undeniably important work has been done through the
application of less formal, less systematic, methods to the investigation of
variouis aspects of the “musical sign,” the very notion of a comprehensive
theory of musical “signification” in general has come to seem increasingly
problematic.
In
my view, the rush away from the model offering the most promise for the
development of such a theory has been both premature and unnecessary. What has been missed is the fact that
Saussure’s thinking is grounded in a construct which is already quite
“musical.” I am referring not to his
signifier/signified relation, but the notion of “value,” as in his description
of language as “a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each
term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others.” While the signifier/signified relation is
certainly important for any understanding of verbal language, the notion of
value is clearly more fundamental and, in my opinion, far more broadly
applicable. For many Saussure
explicators, there is something both difficult to grasp and also problematic
about this idea, which, for someone who wants to get right down to signifier/signified
basics, can seem rather superfluous. Musicians, however, should have little
difficulty in grasping both the meaning and importance of “value.” The most obvious point of comparison is, of
course, the rhythmic “values” we have learned so early in our careers that it
is much too easy to take them for granted.
Four quarter notes equal two half notes which equal one whole note. If we happen to have a dotted quarter handy,
we can exchange it for three eighth notes because both are equivalent in value.
Something
very similar is at work in the realm of pitch, since any scale system can
certainly also be described as “a system of interdependent terms in which the
value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the
others.” If we can see that intervals
are the equivalent of rhythmic values, it is not difficult to understand how
they too can be “exchanged”: a perfect
fourth being understood as equivalent in tonal value to a whole step
plus a minor third, say, or six half steps to a diminished fifth.
Already
in 1932 Roman Jakobson had written “[t]here is . . . exactly the same
relationship between a musical value and its realizations as there is in
language between a phoneme and the articulated sounds which represent this
phoneme in speech.” [“Musicology and
Linguistics,” in Roman Jakobson, Language in Literature, Harvard U.
Press, 1987, p. 456. – he also writes:
“... in music as opposed to language it is the tone system itself that
bears meaning...” – p. 457] A handy
dictionary [the American Heritage Dictionary] defines the phoneme quite
simply as “The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of
conveying a distinction in meaning.”
“Meaning” in such a context is usually understood in a strictly semantic
sense. Thus a phoneme is usually defined
according to distinctions of denotation, e.g., cat as opposed to rat
or cab. In my view, however,
what gives phonemes the ability to produce such distinctions is their existence
as vocable classes, something which, in my view, is prior to “meaning”
in the narrowly semantic sense and far more closely associated with the notion
of value. A phoneme can thus more
fundamentally be defined as a class of vocables heard, for the purposes of a
given language, as essentially the same sound,
i.e., having the same value, a definition not formulated
in semantic terms and much more easily lending itself to a musical
interpretation. Noam Chomsky has made a
similar observation, disputing the notion that phonology must necessarily be
based on semantic distinctions. (See
Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, Mouton, the Hague, 1975, chapter 9,
“Syntax and Semantics,” pp. 96-98).
Given
the above, it is not difficult to understand how a pitch class can be
regarded as in some sense analogous to a vocable class, or phoneme. But we must proceed with caution at this
point or we will find ourselves back where we started, with the now bankrupt
“linguistics model.” What should be
meaningful for us about the notion of value is not that it helps to link pitch
classes with phonemes, but that it suggests the existence of a more fundamental
principle at work in both music and verbal language, a principle which give
rise to value and ultimately, in my opinion, meaning itself, in the most
basic sense of the word, a sense that must be regarded as pre-semantic. Pitch classes and phonemes are
analogous. They are not exactly
equivalent. Each works in a different
way to produce very different effects.
Music is not speech. But both can
be understood as “language”, both are, in some sense, “meaningful.” The strong similarities and analogies between
them tell us they must have a common ground.
The
Musical Field
In
my paper “Toward a Unified Theory of the Arts,” I present a theoretical
framework within which the system of class identities behind things like
phonemes and pitch classes can be situated.
What I call “Principle 1” is crucial, as it provides us with an approach
to the notion of “meaning” totally independent of semantic considerations: “any object of perception can signify (take
on meaning) only in relation to a controlling syntactic field.” Such a field can be understood in Saussurian
terms as a value based “differential field.”
It is also a Gestalt field, perceptible in terms of figure
against ground, in which the whole can be regarded as greater than the sum of
its parts. It can be regarded also as a
“vector field,” in which each element must be understood as in some sense “pointing”
in a certain direction. Above all, it is
a “syntactic field,” in the very broadly defined sense of a structure (“tax”)
which brings together, or unifies (“syn”).
In this context we could associate “meaning,” not with the co-ordination
of a signified with a signifier, but with the sense of orientation
within a field which makes the signifier/ signified relation possible.
Adopting a field approach, we are more easily able to
understand issues pertaining to meaning in relation with issues pertaining to space and time which
have been (since Kant’s transcendental aesthetic) also associated with sensory
experience. Thus we can more effectively
treat questions regarding the affects of perception on signification (and vice
versa).
In the
“common practice” of 18th and 19th Century Western
concert music, we find two such fundamental syntactic fields, the space-like
“tonal field” and the fundamentally temporal “metric field,” which, when
coordinated, unite to form a more basic “tonal-metric” field of tonal
“dynamics” or “motion.” I have chosen
the common practice “major-minor” system as the focus of this paper
because 1. I can be reasonably sure
everyone present has more than a passing acquaintance with the repertoire, and 2. this particular musical “language”
embodies the principles I wish to discuss in a highly developed and clear
manner, relatively easy to explicate. In
principle, any traditional musical “language” from any society anywhere in the
world ought to be analyzable in more or less equivalent terms.
As stated above, a syntactic field can be understood as, at one and the same time, a value field, a gestalt field, and a vector field. As value fields, the tonal and metric fields are clearly articulated and coordinated by systems of difference, such as tunings, scales, meters, which produce various “phoneme-like” classes, such as pitch classes, interval classes, time point classes, duration classes, etc. Since the pioneering work of Leonard Meyer, the interpretation of common practice music in gestalt terms should present no problems. For example, melodies are heard as “figures” against a “ground” of harmonic progressions and tonal relationships, musical lines emerge via gestalt principles such as “the law of good continuation,” musical structures are perceived as wholes “greater than the sum of their parts,” etc. The field idea itself is, of course, fundamental to gestalt theory.
The third “dimension” of the syntactic field, intimately
associated with the other two, its vector aspect, should be equally familiar to
musicians via certain basic notions such as chord progression, tendency tone,
etc. Within a given key or chord,
certain notes are less stable than others, “point” toward others. The leading tone “wants” to move upward to
the tonic, suspensions are heard as “needing” to resolve to the note a step
below. Chord progressions “move” in a
certain tonal “direction,” dominant seventh chords “want” to resolve to their
respective tonics. In purely rhythmic
terms, up-beats “move” toward downbeats, unaccented notes incline toward
accented notes, etc. It is my contention
that all such phenomena are produced and controlled by the dynamics of the
tonal-metric field as a whole, a hierarchical vector-based force field in
which, at any given moment, we can posit an “arrow” pointing in a certain
direction within tonal-metric “space.”
It is this vector aspect which enables us to continually “orient” and
“re-orient” ourselves within “musical space” as we are listening.
A roughly similar type of field can be posited for verbal
syntax, where adjectives “point” to nouns, adverbs to verbs, transitive verbs
to their objects, subsidiary clauses to principle clauses, etc. In the realm of the visual arts, a strong
analogy to the common practice tonal-metric field is the perspective system,
also a combined value, gestalt and vector field, in which every represented object
must be “seen” as clearly oriented within an illusory three-dimensional space.
The representation of such a field for music poses far more
of a challenge than it would for verbal language or perspective, however, and I
must confess I have not yet succeeded in constructing a model that satisfies me
completely. What I do have, at this
point, can be visualized as a kind of clock.
At any given point in a piece of music we can construct two such clocks for
every note sounding at a particular moment or during a particular section. The tonal “vector” of each note would be
represented by a clock “hand” in the form of an arrow, inclined in the
direction of that position in the circle of fifths toward which the note seems
to be “pointing.” The strength of the
tonal “pull” would be represented by the length of the arrow. Something analogous could be constructed to
represent the metric vector of each note. Instead of the circle of fifths, we might
want to have the principle beats of the measure represented, with the note’s
vector arrow pointing at the beat representing either the position or the
“goal” of that note. The vectors of all
the notes of that section of the piece could then be summed to produce
resultant vectors for both the tonal and metric fields. And these vectors could, in turn, be
coordinated to produce a single “master” vector pointing in a particular
direction in tonal-metric “space,” with a particular degree of force. In principle, at least, this is vaguely how
something like this might work. To
actually put it into practice would, I must acknowledge, be replete with all
sorts of difficulties.
While such
an exercise might seem both cumbersome and artificial, an awareness of the
workings of the tonal-metric field in some such terms can help us to grasp one
of the most important and also neglected aspects of music theory and analysis –
the manner in which the interplay of tonal and metric forces
simultaneously 1. controls the way we
“hear” a piece of music from moment to moment and as a whole; 2. gives meaning to every detail as well as
to the whole, and 3. opens each musical formation up to the possibility
of serving as a signifier for some signified.
I would like to briefly discuss each of these aspects.
1. As is well known,
any given pitch class will sound different when heard in a different key. What may not be so well understood is the
manner in which the tonal-metric field can produce a wide range of such sonic
“colorations,” to produce extraordinarily subtle effects. For example, comparing the opening measures
of two apparently very different sounding works, the prelude to Tristan
and the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, we discover that, in purely
harmonic terms, they are actually quite similar. In both, the first chord we hear is the
half-diminished seventh, or “Tristan chord,” which then resolves quite smoothly
to a dominant seventh. There is, to my
knowledge, no currently accepted analytic technique which enables us to understand
why the effect of these chords is so dramatically different (even when
both passages are reduced for piano, so orchestration will not be a
factor). It is only when we consider
the field effect of the very different melodic materials preceding the opening
chord of each that we can adequately explain why, for example, the two dominant
seventh chords sound so radically different, despite their identical
function according to traditional theoretical principles. Heard within any given tonal-metric field,
any musical gestalt will have a certain “value” determined by its orientation
within the total field, not simply its function within some given key. What we hear, from moment to moment,
therefore, is not the acoustically determined sounds, but their field
determined value, which is always associated with a vector “pointing” in
a certain direction within the field.
2. As should now be clear, what we understand as musical “meaning” is intimately associated with the notion of value, as discussed above. It is possible thus to claim that orientation within a syntactic vector field is what gives music its meaning. When we become disoriented, and can no longer relate what we are hearing to such a field, and are thus unable to assign it a value, then what we are hearing becomes “meaningless.”
3. We can therefore go
on to claim that the identification of particular musical gestalts, as oriented
within a tonal-metric field, tends to set up certain semiotic expectations in
the mind of the listener. This is
due, in my opinion, to an intimate relationship
between gestalt perception and semiosis:
anything perceptible as a gestalt “wants” in some sense to signify and,
as a corollary, any sign, in order to function as such, must be perceptible
within a gestalt field. Thus musical
gestalts will have a strong tendency to be heard as signs, inducing the
listener to produce some sort of
signified, even if only in the imagination, in order to fulfill a
semiotic expectation. Though traditional
music is not necessarily semantic in the sense that language is, it therefore
possesses semantic valence nevertheless. In more general terms, where there are no
particular conventions turning particular gestalts into particular
signifier/signified pairs, the mind will tend to manufacture signifieds of its
own, according to more loosely defined conventions.
The “Cost” of Semiosis
The semiotic effects
discussed above are not achieved without cost.
Because of the gestalt nature of the syntactic field it functions in and
through repression. This can be made
evident through a closer look at the way rhythmic values operate within the
metric field. Each value is supposed to
represent a relative duration, but in fact rhythmic values have a double
function. If a dotted half is followed
by quarter note and a whole note, in two measures of 4/4, this tells us two very
different things: 1. the duration of
each note with respect to the beat; 2.
the exact point in the measure that each note should be attacked. That these are not by any means equivalent
will be evident if we imagine this sequence played at a very slow tempo on the
piano. Since the piano cannot give each
note its full value, the duration of the dotted half and the whole will
probably be identical. What is
especially interesting about this situation is that it doesn’t seem to
matter. The “native listener” will not
be bothered by this because the difference in duration has no bearing on the
musical meaning of the passage.
Semiotically, then, it seems evident that, for common practice music,
where piano arrangements of just about anything are considered appropriate, the
durational aspect of the rhythmic values can be regarded as lacking
“pertinence.” Their function in
determining the exact position of attack points, is, on the other hand,
essential. Clearly, the metric field of
common practice music is based on attack points, not durations. Duration is certainly important, but its
importance must be regarded as strictly supplemental. Changes of duration will not change meaning –
repositioning of attack points will.
This is only
one example of a principle very easy to state, but rather difficult to fully
explain: all syntactic fields are virtual
fields. What we “hear” when we listen to
traditional music is not really the “notes themselves” as acoustic entities,
since duration is, in fact, pertinent to our understanding of what
acoustic entities are. Thanks to the
workings of the syntactic field, where duration has been robbed of its
pertinence, notes are heard, in some very important sense, merely as
impulses. Their existence as what we might want to call “raw sounds”
has been repressed by the field.
Therefore,
as essential as the syntactic field is in the determination of meaning, in
music and elsewhere, a theory of this field alone cannot account for everything
of importance. It cannot account for
what the field represses and it cannot account for the reasons why such
repression might be necessary. It cannot
account for the manner in which the actions of the field might be, and in fact
have been, resisted, as, for example, in certain types of modernist music. Finally, it cannot account for the dependence
of the syntactic field on that which it represses. For this, we must rely on the theory of a
very different type of field, what I have called the “antactic” field. [See following essay.]
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