In my previous posts, I discussed two different paradigms that might guide how we approach undergraduate music theory. In Part One, I discussed a perception/cognition approach to music theory. In Part II, I discussed a performance studies-based approach. The last approach I proposed is the subject of today's post. I labeled this last approach "semiotics," but I wish for that label to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't necessarily have in mind a sort of "classical" (Peircean or Saussurean, or even Agawu and Nattiez) semiotics, but rather a broader approach to how music means, proceeding from the assumption that we can view musical features as having some sort of meaning, or as participating in some sort of narrative. This approach of course includes more traditional semiotics approaches, and even the not-explicitly-semiotic approaches owe a fair amount to semiotics.
In short, this approach seeks to answer the question "how does music mean?" or "how does music express or imitate things?"
Simply put, semiotics is the study of signs. Signs are generally taken to refer to something outside themselves. By signs, I don't mean stop signs and billboards, per se. Much of the world around us can be interpreted as signs, and as systems of signs. Words can be understood as signifying an object in the world. DUCK is not really a duck, but it represents--it signifies--this:
.
In the traditional undergraduate theory sequence, we teach students how to construct and identify motives; we teach them how to combine motives into phrases; we teach them how to combine phrases into periods; periods into sonata expositions; etc. What is missing from this approach is an understanding of how these structures mean (or might mean).
Over the centuries and through a variety of ways, various musical figures have acquired different meanings. There are a few books that outline approaches to meaning in music by explicating some of these systems. An example familiar to most might be the Baroque doctrine of the affections. Certain musical attributes were understood to signify certain emotions (much the way ancient theatre and rhetoric manuals prescribe dramatic poses to convey emotion). How might our understanding of a Vivaldi concerto differ if we were conversant in the doctrine of affections? Rather than understanding the piece in ritornello form with a melody comprising motive x and y in alternation, we might understand the motives as expressing despair; we might understand the key change from minor to major and the reappearance of x and y in major as somehow ironic.
Approaches to music of the Classical era in this way abound. James Webster's book on Haydn's "Farewell" symphony makes a compelling argument for the meaning of that work. Robert Gjerdingen's book (which I've mentioned several times on this blog) doesn't deal with meaning, per se, but looks at some standard musical figures used in the Italian conservatory in the late 1600s-early 1700s. Leonard Ratner's musical topics are also akin to the sorts of musical formulae that I have in mind. More recently, Robert Hatten has examined musical topics and gestures in Classical and early Romantic music.
Approaches to semiotics and narrative in Romantic music abound. Michael Klein has done substantial work in this area, as has Byron Almen. There are also approaches to 20th-century music: Nattiez's analysis of Varese's Density 21.5 comes to mind. And this approach too is easily adaptable to world music, to popular music (perhaps especially to popular music), and so on.
Sample assignments might include analyzing the narrative of a work, or picking out motives and determining what they imitate or express (and how). Students could be asked to write pieces in a particular style:
These exercises require some skill in part writing and the like, but the emphasis here is not on avoiding parallel fifths (which, in some musics, could be taken as symbolizing organum or non-Western musics), or executing a textbook sonata form (although sonata form is rife with narrative implications): the emphasis is on narrative and meaning. Why does this piece make you feel a particular way? How does this piece evoke the outdoors?
One positive that I see in this approach is that students will be working with musical units that transcend chords, notes, scales, whatever. If the basic working unit of this approach is something like the motive or gesture, students can create music easily in an ars combinatoria kind of way, rather than building from the note to the chord to the motive to the progression to the cadence to the phrase, or whatever.
The down side here would be the almost complete lack of objective guidelines: not all sign systems are as clear as DUCK = (and, come to think of it, that system is far from objective, too). But perhaps this is also its greatest strength: music is a rather subjective phenomenon; why not emphasize that by teaching it that way?
I agree with Wes's second comment that we do a pretty good job of teaching analysis and compositional practice, but don't pay too much attention to the philosophical/cultural/narrative/what-have-you aspects. Students learn how to assemble notes, and not much else. I hope the three approaches I've outlined spark some consideration as to how we might better serve our student body.
Comments, as always, are welcome.
In short, this approach seeks to answer the question "how does music mean?" or "how does music express or imitate things?"
Simply put, semiotics is the study of signs. Signs are generally taken to refer to something outside themselves. By signs, I don't mean stop signs and billboards, per se. Much of the world around us can be interpreted as signs, and as systems of signs. Words can be understood as signifying an object in the world. DUCK is not really a duck, but it represents--it signifies--this:
.In the traditional undergraduate theory sequence, we teach students how to construct and identify motives; we teach them how to combine motives into phrases; we teach them how to combine phrases into periods; periods into sonata expositions; etc. What is missing from this approach is an understanding of how these structures mean (or might mean).
Over the centuries and through a variety of ways, various musical figures have acquired different meanings. There are a few books that outline approaches to meaning in music by explicating some of these systems. An example familiar to most might be the Baroque doctrine of the affections. Certain musical attributes were understood to signify certain emotions (much the way ancient theatre and rhetoric manuals prescribe dramatic poses to convey emotion). How might our understanding of a Vivaldi concerto differ if we were conversant in the doctrine of affections? Rather than understanding the piece in ritornello form with a melody comprising motive x and y in alternation, we might understand the motives as expressing despair; we might understand the key change from minor to major and the reappearance of x and y in major as somehow ironic.
Approaches to music of the Classical era in this way abound. James Webster's book on Haydn's "Farewell" symphony makes a compelling argument for the meaning of that work. Robert Gjerdingen's book (which I've mentioned several times on this blog) doesn't deal with meaning, per se, but looks at some standard musical figures used in the Italian conservatory in the late 1600s-early 1700s. Leonard Ratner's musical topics are also akin to the sorts of musical formulae that I have in mind. More recently, Robert Hatten has examined musical topics and gestures in Classical and early Romantic music.
Approaches to semiotics and narrative in Romantic music abound. Michael Klein has done substantial work in this area, as has Byron Almen. There are also approaches to 20th-century music: Nattiez's analysis of Varese's Density 21.5 comes to mind. And this approach too is easily adaptable to world music, to popular music (perhaps especially to popular music), and so on.
Sample assignments might include analyzing the narrative of a work, or picking out motives and determining what they imitate or express (and how). Students could be asked to write pieces in a particular style:
Using what you've learned about the pastoral in 18th-century music, write a short piece that evokes the pastoral. Use at least four of the topics that we covered in class
These exercises require some skill in part writing and the like, but the emphasis here is not on avoiding parallel fifths (which, in some musics, could be taken as symbolizing organum or non-Western musics), or executing a textbook sonata form (although sonata form is rife with narrative implications): the emphasis is on narrative and meaning. Why does this piece make you feel a particular way? How does this piece evoke the outdoors?
One positive that I see in this approach is that students will be working with musical units that transcend chords, notes, scales, whatever. If the basic working unit of this approach is something like the motive or gesture, students can create music easily in an ars combinatoria kind of way, rather than building from the note to the chord to the motive to the progression to the cadence to the phrase, or whatever.
The down side here would be the almost complete lack of objective guidelines: not all sign systems are as clear as DUCK =
(and, come to think of it, that system is far from objective, too). But perhaps this is also its greatest strength: music is a rather subjective phenomenon; why not emphasize that by teaching it that way?I agree with Wes's second comment that we do a pretty good job of teaching analysis and compositional practice, but don't pay too much attention to the philosophical/cultural/narrative/what-have-you aspects. Students learn how to assemble notes, and not much else. I hope the three approaches I've outlined spark some consideration as to how we might better serve our student body.
Comments, as always, are welcome.