Can Music Convey Semantic Content? A Kantian Approach

Bicknell, Jeanette

doi:10.1111/1540-6245.00072

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Even while acknowledging the problems in strictly separating the musical and the extramusical, many theorists have deemed it useful to find ways of referring to the ''nonmusical'' meanings that emerge in musical contexts. Some have called these music's ''designative'' (Meyer, 1956), ''extrageneric'' (Coker, 1972), ''referential'' (Trainor & Trehub, 1992), or ''extrinsic meanings'' (Hargreaves, Hargreaves, & North, 2012), or understood them as ''communication of extramusical experience'' (Ferguson, 1960), as ''semantic content'' (Bicknell, 2002), as ''representationality'' (Rowland, 2007), as ''extroversive semiosis'' (Agawu, 1991), or just simply as ''signs'' (e.g., Tarasti, 2002). Others have preferred to speak of ''inner images'' (Gabrielsson, 2011), ''associative responses'' (Hargreaves & Colman, 1981), ''programmatic hearing'' (Hofmann, 2011), ''paramusical fields of connotation'' (Tagg, 2013), ''cross-domain metaphors'' (Spitzer, 2004), or ''priming of knowledge'' (North, MacKenzie, Law, & Hargreaves, 2004), or have postulated a special ''semantic listening mode'' (Chion, 2013;Tuuri & Eerola, 2012).…”

Section: The Semantics Of Musical Topoi: An Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While extramusical imagery does figure prominently in experts' interpretations of music (cf. Bicknell, 2002), it appears to be especially common in nonmusicians' accounts of their listening experience (Flowers, 1984;Larsen & Whitaker, 2013), Moreover, extrinsic associations may be rather systematic: Wagner's leitmotifs may acquire characteristic semantic profiles even for listeners not familiar with the music (HaCohen & Wagner, 1997), and even small children may successfully match music with natural category terms intended by the composer (Hofmann, 2011;Trainor & Trehub, 1992), or agree on the fairy tale characters that particular musical excerpts are best associated with (Hofmann, 2011). There are also indications that reliance on extramusical imagery in descriptions of heard music might depend on the listeners' cultural background (Morrison & Yeh, 1999).…”

Section: The Semantics Of Musical Topoi: An Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Semantics of Musical Topoi

Huovinen

Kaila

2015

Music Perception

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The article introduces an empirical approach to studying music’s extrinsic meanings, based on the idea of musical topos as a set of musical entities that is delimited and furnished with meaning by extramusical associations in a listener population. The proposed methodology involves free, associative responses as well as responses on semantic variables addressing the imagery. After deriving potential topical structures for a given musical domain from the quantitative results, the structures are substantiated by using them to guide a rule-based, qualitative analysis of the free responses. The approach allows a view to the topical organization of a musical domain in which the identity of each musical topos is fixed in extrinsic terms, by a set of semantic fields that is unique to the topos in question. An application of the approach to contemporary “motivational” production music yields an organization of such semantic fields into three topical categories—Intimacy, Potency, and Speed.

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Section: The Semantics Of Musical Topoi: An Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Semantics Of Musical Topoi: An Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Semantics of Musical Topoi

Huovinen

Kaila

2015

Music Perception

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“…Thus, linguistic meanings can be considered subjective, but within a constraining field. Bicknell (2002) reviews philosophical work on the question of whether and how music might convey semantic content. Temperley (1999) reviews questions of purpose in writing about music, especially theoretical writing concerning structure, and categorizes some approaches as 'prescriptive': those that attempt to shape or influence a person's experience of a piece.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When program notes don’t help: Music descriptions and enjoyment

Margulis

2010

Psychology of Music

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u n i v e r s i t y o f a r k a n s a s , u s a a b s t r a c tThe widespread practice of including program notes for classical concerts assumes that extramusical information affects musical experience, but the psychological mechanisms underlying this process are little understood. In this study, 16 people without formal musical training heard excerpts from Beethoven String Quartets prefaced by either a dramatic description, a structural description, or no description. They were asked to rate their enjoyment of the music, and in a later stage, to recall excerpts and descriptions. Results showed a significant negative effect of description, suggesting that prefacing an excerpt with a text description reduces enjoyment of the music. In a second experiment, 11 new participants heard the same excerpts in the different description conditions, and were not asked to rate enjoyment until a second stage of the study. Results followed the same pattern as those in the first experiment, but did not rise to the level of significance. Conceptualizing listening by connecting it to linguistically named correlates (a practice fundamental to music training) may have more multifarious (and not always straightforwardly beneficial) effects on musical experience than commonly assumed. k e y w o r d s : musical description, conceptualization, musical enjoyment, program notes, verbal overshadowing A R T I C L E 285 Psychology of Music Psychology of Music

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“…Pop music is much more than an object of entertainment (De Nora, 2001; Sloboda & O'Neill, 2001) which, therefore, requires to be analyzed to reveal the message of the composers. Bicknell (2002) posits that the meaning of pop songs is normally traced to a conscious communicative effort of the composers. Since the meaning of pop music is as varied as there are composers, it is, therefore, necessary to interpret the metaphors in EPS to objectively disclose the message of the composers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Categorization Strategy for Objects Metaphors in Ekegusii Pop Songs

Ntabo¹

2019

(BAES)

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The principle of Great Chain of Being Metaphor (GCBM) is normally resourceful in the analysis of metaphors. This is because the GCBM assigns a place for any phenomenon in the universe in a strict hierarchical system thus helping in understanding one thing based on another. For example, the objects chain is the second last level which is very useful in conceptualizing objects metaphors in society. Composers of Ekegusii pop songs (EPS) employ objects metaphors which refer to concreteness and abstractness to communicate their message in a subjective manner. However, the GCBM does not effectively account for concreteness and abstractness in objects metaphor analysis. The paper, therefore, devises a categorization strategy to aid in the analysis of the metaphors in EPS. Using a qualitative research design, the study identifies, classifies and interprets the metaphors in the selected EPS using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU). Obwanchani (Love) EPS by Ontiri Bikundo was purposively sampled for the study based on its richness in metaphors and popularity in FM stations in Kenya. The research found that the objects metaphors are source domains in the construction of metaphors related to human beings in EPS. The paper concludes that metaphors are crucial ways of communication and should be analyzed using a Cognitive Linguistics approach. The study recommends that language researchers should adopt a categorization strategy to effectively analyze the objects metaphors.

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Can Music Convey Semantic Content? A Kantian Approach

Cited by 9 publications

References 5 publications

The Semantics of Musical Topoi

The Semantics of Musical Topoi

When program notes don’t help: Music descriptions and enjoyment

A Categorization Strategy for Objects Metaphors in Ekegusii Pop Songs

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