Signs of Music: A Guide to Musical Semiotics (Approaches to Applied Semiotics [AAS], 3)

Music is said to be the most autonomous and least representative of all the arts. However, it reflects in many ways the realities around it and influences its social and cultural environments. Music is as much biology, gender, gesture - something intertextual, even transcendental. Musical signs can be studied throughout their history as well as musical semiotics with its own background. Composers from Chopin to Sibelius and authors from Nietzsche to Greimas and Barthes illustrate the avenues of this new discipline within semiotics and musicology. Foreword Contents Part one: Music as sign Chapter 1 Is music sign? 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Music as semiotic: A historical perspective 1.3 Peirce, Greimas, and music-semiotic analysis 1.4 Understanding / misunderstanding musical signs Chapter 2 Signs in music history, history of music semiotics 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Signs in music itself 2.3 History of musical scholarship in the light of semiotics 2.4 Main lines in the development of musical semiotics Chapter 3 Signs as acts and events: On musical situations 3.1 Situation as communication and signification 3.2 Situation as act and event 3.3 Situations as intertextuality 3.4 Articulation of situations Part two: Gender, biology, and transcendence Chapter 4 Metaphors of nature and organicism in music: A “biosemiotic” approach 4.1 On the musically organic 4.2 Sibelius and the idea of the “organic” 4.3 Organic narrativity Chapter 5 The emancipation of the sign: On corporeal and gestural meanings in music Chapter 6 Body and transcendence in Chopin 6.1 Are corporeal signs iconic? 6.2 Are corporeal signs indexical? 6.3 Analysis Part three: Social and musical practices Chapter 7 Voice and identity 7.1 Voice and signification 7.2 Text 7.3 Transcendence 7.4 Orality 7.5 Singing as social identity 7.6 National voice types 7.7 Gender 7.8 Education 7.9 Empirical methods 7.10 Conclusion Chapter 8 On the semiosis of musical improvisation: From Mastersingers to Bororo indians 8.1 Musical improvisation and semiotics 8.2 Improvisation as communication 8.3 Improvisation as signification: A peircean view 8.4 Improvisation as signification: A greimassian view 8.5 Conclusion: Improvisation and existential semiotics Notes References Name index Review text: "'Signs of music: a guide to musical semiotics' von Eero Tarasti ist ein Buch, das sein Versprechen erfüllt. Es ist eine motivierende Lektüre, sowohl für diejenigen, die zum ersten Mal mit dieser neuen Disziplin in Berührung kommen, als auch für die in diese Materie bereits eingeweihten. Das faszinierende hervortretende Feld Musiksemiotik ist ein vielfältiger und komplexer Diskurs und Metadiskurs über Musik und Zeichen in Bezug auf Ästhetik, Geschichte, Komposition, Interpretation, Kommunikation, Praxis, usw. Eero Tarasti verbindet wissenschaftliche Genauigkeit mit Offenheit und bietet hier eine Grundlage für weitere Entwicklungen."Paulo C. Chagas in: Forum Musikbibliothek, Kromsdorf/Weimar, 1/2003 Annotation Eight essays and articles Finish scholar Tarasti has mostly written since his 1994 trace his development of a new philosophical theory called existential semiotics. He intends them to provide a practical guide to studying music as sign and communication, combining his own ideas with those of recent musicology in general. They cover music as sign; gender, biology, and transcendence; and social and musical practices. Only names are indexed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Music is said to be the most autonomous and least representative of all the arts. However, it reflects in many ways the realities around it and influences its social and cultural environments. This volume explores the new discipline of musical semiotics.