120 Schrift –Kultur –Individuum

Eero Tarasti () Do Semantic Aspects of Music Have aNotation?

Accordingtomanyscholarsand philosophers, musicisnot thesamething as thesounds andnotes butonlymanifests through them.Somescholarsthink that therealmusic lies in itsvalues, ideas, noemas,which aretranscendentalinrelationtoempiricalsound realities. However,the extent to whichthe purelyhuman side of music, its›modalities‹–inthe philosophical andsemioticsense –can find theirequivalent -vehicles, andthe impor- tanceoftheir fixation into concretevisualorother signsinthe musichistory is an ever changingvariable. Therelativityofnotationwas notedearly by François Couperin when he said:»Nous écrivonsdifféremment de ce que nous exécutons«1.Later CharlesSeeger spokeabout prescriptiveand descriptivenotation.2 When conductorSerge Koussevitzky wasdissatisfiedwithamusician’sperformance andheasked whichnotewas wrong, the maestroanswered: »no, it is betweenthe notes«.3 Hencenotes,the notationdoesnot sayall aboutmusic andwhatmakes it musicinthe end. The›modalities‹havebeenanessential componentofthe generative modelsofmusical . In language they appear throughverbs such as ›tobe‹,›to do‹, ›want‹,›can‹, ›must‹,›know‹and ›believe‹. Appliedtomusic,theyhavebeendescribed by anotation systemstemmingfrommodallogic andGreimas’ semiotic system.4 However, thesym- bols of formal logicare notquite apttoportray this type of living andprocessualmu- sicalsemantics devoidofany concrete›meanings‹. Firstly, they aredifficulttograsp for anon-specialist, andsecondly, musiccannotbeentirelydigitalized into discreteunits of notations,because it is acontinuousprocess.Music is aconstanttransformationfrompre- signsintoact-signs andfromact-signs into post-signs. Othersuchnew sign categories – discoveredbythe existentialsemiotics5 –are endo-signs andexo-signs,pheno-signs and geno-signs,quasi-signs or as-if-signs, andtrans-signs.Music consists in acontinuousdia- lectic amongthem. It is thus aconstantfluxbetween transcendenceand ›‹. Howcould musicbeanalyzedand theresults notatedinthe lightofthisfundamental view of itssignificative andcommunicative nature? Certainlythislevel couldbedescribed, butcould it ever be ›prescribed‹ in thesense that musicianswould understanditand takeit into accountintheir renderings?Myhypothesisisthatanew notation canbefound in order to reveal andcommunicate this essential aspect of music. This couldhappenbycombining theGreimasian-basedformalgrammarsofmodalities andthe theoretical ideasofHeinrich Schenker. That wouldbethe next stepinthe elaborationoftheoriesinmusical semiotics.

1 SeeJean-Claude Veilhan, LesRèglesdel’interprétationmusicaleàl’époquebaroque(XVIIe–XVIIIes.) généralesàtousles instruments,Paris 1977,p.iii. 2 SeeCharlesSeeger, »Onthe MoodsofaMusic Logic«,in: JAMS 13 (1960), p. 224–261. 3 SeeNicolas Slonimsky, PerfectPitch:ALifeStory,Oxfordand NewYork1988, p. 31. 4 SeeEeroTarasti, ATheoryofMusical Semiotics,Bloomington 1994. 5 Seeibid., ExistentialSemiotics,Bloomington 2000. Tarasti: Do Semantic Aspects of Music Have aNotation? 121

At firstglanceone wouldthink of musicalnotationtobethe primaryobject of such a disciplineassemiotics when it is appliedtomusic.However,itisamazinghow fewschol- arshaveaddressed notation in this field. ThelateIngmarBengtsson in hispanoramic study Musikvetenskap6 hadsomeideas on it.But regardless of theGregorian semiology,the term ›semiotics‹appears seldomly in specializedstudies of thefield.The medievalistLeo Treitler haswritten alot on this topicinhis recent study With Voiceand Pen7,inhis attempt to relatetheoriesofgeneral semioticstonotationalproblemsofmusical discourseand its historyinthe Middle Ages.Soahistorically-oriented musicologist certainly wouldsee ourproblem as avariableofhistoricalcontexts,and if we accept theprincipleofTreitler8 that we always writehistory from thepoint of view of ourown time,wewould thinkthat sinceweare living in theage of semiotics, this is only anothernew interpretationina series of diverse paradigmsand scientific contexts of ourmusical studies. In fact,someex- amples by Treitler displayinterestingaspects of medieval notation,likethe score in the form of heartand usingred andblack colourstonotifytimevaluesofperformance.On theone hand,the ›Gestalt‹here is an iconic sign of thecontentsofthe song whereas the coloursindicatewhatwecalledmodalities above –inthe linguisticand philosophical,not themusical sense–influencethe time valuesofperformance. Yet, ourtitle containsanother item whichisatleast as problematic,namely›semantics‹. Semanticshas been oftenconfusedwithsemiotics.The latter is of course theumbrella title coveringthe meanings,semantics as oneofits subfields, whereas thestudy of significance i.e. semiotics, also concerns thosesigns whichcarry meanings or what we call ›signvehi- cles‹9.Semiotics is oftenconsideredacombinationofsignificanceand communication. This poses averysimplequestion: howdoesmusical semanticsdifferfromverbal semantics? In spoken andwritten language,where we have a›word‹ as thebasic semanticunit, we do not oftenneedtoask what it means. No specialsignornotationisneededtosemantics on the side of syntax.Whenwereadorhearaverbalsign, we automaticallyassociate itsmeaning by convention andbyusing codesofgrammar.Ifthere is aproblem,i.e.wedonot directly understandwhatitis, we useadictionaryoruse otherwords to clarify thesituation. In musicthisismuchmorecomplicated.Musical signsofnotationrefer firsttoperfor- manceinstructionsand auralmanifestation.Thisofcoursepassesthrough mediationofges- turallanguage, i.e. thenotationisfirst renderedvia tactilesigns or ›gSigns‹, to useThomas A. Sebeok’s formulation.10 Only thereafter we thinkfurtherwhatthissound form or ›Ge- stalt‹ mightmean. Some scholarssay that those»tönend bewegte Formen« do notmeanany- thingand so they stop thediscussion there. To theirmindmusic is only a»Form im Spiel der Empfindungen« as Immanuel Kant putit, or mere design (David Lidov11), or what is called ›absoluteMusic‹,totallyabstract. Suchaformalist attitude is consideredatotallyle-

6 Ingmar Bengtsson, Musikvetenskap: En översikt,Stockholm²1977. 7 LeoTreitler, With Voiceand Pen: Coming to Know MedievalSongand HowitWas Made,Oxford2003. 8 Oral communicationwiththe author. 9 WinfridNöth, Handbuchder Semiotik,Stuttgart andWeimar²2000. 10 Seefor example Thomas A. Sebeok, Global Semiotics, Bloomington andIndianapolis2001. 11 SeeDavid Lidov, Is Language aMusic?WritingsonMusical Form andSignification,Bloomington and Indianapolis 2005. 122 Schrift –Kultur –Individuum gitimate aestheticstandpoint from Eduard Hanslick to Igor Stravinskijand Claude Lévi- Strauss.12 Thereisnomeaning,nosemantics in music, we only add it therelater forvarious reasonswhich maybeasocialhabit (contextualtheories),due to thefactthatall musicis communication(as themediating theories of musicargue,exemplifiedbyAntoine Hen- nion13), becausemusic evokes otherartistictexts or events in itsexternalworld (intertextual andprogrammatic tendencies) or becausemusic is oneofour subject strategies by whichwe orient ourselveswithinour deep psychiclie (psychoanalytictheories).Someadopt amore moderate view that musicdoesnot conveymeaningsbut only expresses somethingwhich is meaningful.14 At thesametimewecomeclose to theproblem of representation. It is the strongest relationshipbetween asign–inmusic notation–and somethingtowhich it refers (renvoi by RomanJakobson15). Nelson Goodmanhas ponderedthe ontologicalstatusofthe score in hisstudy LanguagesofArt16,where he claimsthatmusical performanceisan›exem- plification‹ of thescore,callingthisrelationshiptype/token (borrowedfromPeirce) as well. Anotherapproachtothisproblem in theAnglo-analytictradition hasbeenmadeby theFinnish musicologist Kari Kurkelainhis work Noteand Tone:ASemanticAnalysis of Con- ventionalMusic Notation17 whichapplies Montague’ssemantictheorytomusic.Moreoverthe issuecan be scrutinizedfromthe viewpointofcomputer –assistedstudies such as thoseby KaiLassfolkinhis MusicNotationasObjects:AnObject-Oriented Analysis of theCommonWes- tern MusicNotationSystem.18 However, we have to remember that we have ›less‹strongmea- ningfuldevices such as to signify, to express,toconveyetc. concerningrepresentation. In spiteofall thesesophisticatedmusical theories,weshouldtakeintoaccount onegen- eral truthrevealedbygeneral semioticsconcerningall sign systems andsymbolicforms inventedbyaman/woman.Namelythatsomething whichdoesnot have ameaning can appear only as anegativesideofits primarymeaningfulness.Thiswas noticedasearly as 1976 by oneofthe Tartuschoolscholars, BorisGasparow.19 This meansthatalthoughmu- sicisan›absolute‹ and›abstract‹formitisalwaysasymbolicformand even when negating anyovertand explicit meanings,itcontainssomething of it,evenifitisonlyaHegelian negation through akindof›negative Dialektik‹. Theproblem of this paperishow such meaningfulness is approached andhow that whichisimplicitlysemanticinevery,eventi- niestmusical utterancecan be made audible, visibleand ultimately explicit by some kind

12 »LaMusique,c’est le langagemoins sens«. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mythologiques IV:L’Homme nu,Paris 1971,p.579. 13 AntoineHennion,»Institutionetmarché: Représentationsmusicales,àpropos d’uneauditionde variétés«, in: MusiqueetMédiations, le métier,l’instrument, l’oreille,ed. by Hugues Dufourt andJoël-Marie Fauquet, Paris1994, p. 147–163. 14 SeeRoger Scruton, TheAestheticsofMusic,London1997. 15 SeeRoman Jakobson, Essais de linguistiquegénérale,Paris 1963. 16 Nelson Goodman, LanguagesofArt:AnApproach to aTheoryofSymbols,Indianapolis1976. 17 Kari Kurkela, Note andTone: ASemanticAnalysisofConventionalMusic Notation (= Acta Musicologica Fennica15),Helsinki1986. 18 KaiLassfolk, MusicNotationasObjects:AnObject-OrientedAnalysisofthe CommonWestern MusicNota- tion System (= Acta SemioticaFennica 19), Imatra 2004. 19 BorisGasparow, »SomeDescriptive Problems of MusicalSemantics«, in: Dispositio. RevistaHispánica de Semiótica Literaria (1976),p.247–262. Tarasti: Do Semantic Aspects of Music Have aNotation? 123 of notation.SomescholarssuchasAlgirdasJulienGreimas in generalsemiotics speakof ›structuralsemantics‹20 andsome, such as LeonardB.Meyer,of»embodied meanings«.21 Does ourconventionalmusical andprescriptivenotationcontain anythingofthisim- plicit or hiddensemanticaspectofmusic?Havemethods of analysis developedbymusic semioticians been able to find an appropriate notation andvisualization forit? In order to answer thesequestions we have to make ashort overview of thehistory of musical semioticsand itsanalyticprocedurestofindout whetherthere is anything like ›seman- ticanalysis‹ or descriptivenotationofmusical semantics. Of course,suchanoverview cannot be given withoutsimultaneouslyquestioning what theepistemicfoundations of each scholar aboutthe nature of such implicit semanticsare.Isitanythingwhich canbe graspedbyverbal reactionstomusic,whenwesupposewecan only trytofindasuccessful verbal meta-languagetosuchentities? This wouldbethe same as Nattiez’Aisthesis view- pointor›Rezeptionsgeschichte‹ofmusical works. We look at traces of musicalmeanings as experienced by listeners andtheir verbal commentaries as theultimateformofmusical hermeneuticsof, forexample,ArnoldSchering’sromanticism. Or is it something of which we become awarewhendealingwitheitherverbalornotationalindications of perform- ance by composers: when Robert Schumannwrites»rasch« (studied by Roland Barthes22) or »durchaus phantastisch undleidenschaftlich« or when such conventionalsigns as cres- cendo, diminuendo, sf, pedal etc. areused? In thesecases musicalsemantics wouldbesome- thinglikethe aspectualsemes in verbal language:i.e.grammar formswhich determine whethersomething is said sufficiently,insufficiently,too early, toolate, with certainty,un- certainty,withhesitationetc.Ultimatelywehavetoadmit that withoutsuchaspects music wouldnot be musicbut rather somethinglifeless –althoughagain some periodssuchas ours,withits passionfor ›Urtext‹,deny therelevance of this level. Moreover we have to admitthatthe ›isotopes‹,i.e.deepest semantic categories,are decisivefor what communi- cative devicesacomposer/performer/listenerapplies. Forinstance, in apiece like Robert Schumann’sPhantasyinCmajor,heusesisotopies whichallow us to graspthe musical surfaceand ›notes‹inasemanticallycorrect manner.Ihavealwaysbeenconvinced that themusic in itslastmovement»Langsamgetragen, Durchweg leisezuhalten« evokes the endscene of Goethe’s Faust II through itstemporal, actorial andspatial disengagements. This is amusician’sand asemiotician’s intuition. Buthow canweprove andjustify it on thebasis of thenotation, i.e. by interpretingwhatthe composer wrotedowninnotes?We must go farbeyondthe concretevisible signsofthe score to legitimize such areasoning. Ultimately,itispossibleonlyifweare competentinthe ›isotopies‹ofromanticculture and itsintertextualfield or what UmbertoEco called »encyclopediaofculture«.23 So if we address thequestionwhether musicalsemantics hasanotationwemove in theselines,and trytograsp what ErnstKurthunderstood by hisideathatmusic is kinetic energy.Something similarwas laterstatedbyL.B.Meyer when he said that musicisbasi-

20 SeeAlgirdasJulienGreimas, Sémantique structurale,Paris 1966. 21 LeonardB.Meyer, Explaining Music,Chicago 1973. 22 SeeEeroTarasti,»Roland Barthesorthe BirthofSemiotics from theSpiritofMusic«,in: ConRoland Barthesallesorgentidel senso,ed. by AugustoPonzio, Patrizia Calefato andSusan Petrilli,Rome2006, p. 187–198. 23 UmbertoEco, Kant et l’ornithorynque,Paris 1999. 124 Schrift –Kultur –Individuum callyimplication.These ideaswould preclude that musicalsemantics is essentiallyoftem- poralnature, i.e. verymuchinlinewithHeidegger’ssense.Yet Meyer thoughtthatthe archetypal cognitive›Gestalten‹ of music, such as axis,symmetry, scale, triadand so on liebehindthe implication.24 From an energetic pointofview, these›Gestalten‹ arenot the primarything,theyare rather chosen by acomposer when he wantstoexpress acertain type of kineticenergyand itsunfolding.Altogether, we see here howmusical semanticsis irrefutably connectedwithpostulatesonthe epistemicnatureofmusic itself. To refer to my ownrecenttheoriesonexistentialsemiotics,Iwould arguethatmusic is akindof›Schein‹ (inthe senseofKant, Schillerand Adorno), in thesense that something immanent,›semantic‹ manifestsinevery musicalutterance,vertically. Butatthe same time musicisahorizontal, linearand syntagmaticappearance, i.e. essentiallyprocessualand dy- namics –justlikeKurththought.Ihavealready underlined theimportanceofKurth’sview on musicand itsessence in ATheoryofMusical Semiotics.25 We also know howcrucial Kurth wastoHeinrichSchenker. Butnow if we accept that musicis›Erscheinung‹,namely›hori- zontal appearance‹, we reachaveryprofoundepistemiclevel to buildanentirelynew theory of musicalsemiotics.Thisshouldalsoincludeanew type of notation of such ›appearance‹. My earliersolutionwas to usesymbols borrowedfromformallogics, thesameones whichGreimasusedinhis extremelyformalizedanalyticmeta-language.Irefer forinstance to my studyofChopin’sGminor Ballade in whichsuchformalizedprocedure reachesits culmination.26 Istill thinkthisispossible, butinapragmatic senseitisnot yet fullyreal- izingthe potentialofmodalaspectofmusic,i.e.modalities (›to be‹, ›todo‹,›will‹, ›can‹, ›know‹,›must‹, ›believe‹).Neither is it verycomprehensible formusicians withouteduca- tion in formal logics.Therefore,Istronglybelieve that Schenkerian notation couldbedeve- lopedinthatdirection.Its advantageisthatitportraysmusic as atemporalunfolding,i.e. appearance,and second,every musicalevent canbeshown itsplace in thewholeprocess. TomPankhursthas alreadyproposed that Schenkerian ›Stufen 3-2-1‹ couldbeequalled to Greimassianmodalities like ›wanttodo‹,›be‹etc.27 This idea couldnow be elaborated furtherbystudyingthe ›existential‹ momentsofmusical work,i.e.moments in whichthe necessityofSchenkerian generative course –and thefreedom of choice whichacomposer always haswithinthe limits of thegrammar –meeteachother.Manyleading Schenkerians like Eduard Laufer admitthatthismethodwould also need such kind of semantic aspect in order to legitimize itsmeaningfulness in themusical process.Thiswould enable us to inter- pret musicasanexistentialand even transcendentalphenomenon.28 Butitwould also bring this idea quiteconcretelyintothe practice of musicalanalysisand itsrigorousnotation.

24 Meyer, Explaining Music. 25 Tarasti, ATheoryofMusical Semiotics,p.98–106. 26 Seeibid., p. 154–180. 27 TomPankhurst, DesiringClosure,Yearningfor Freedom:ASemiotic StudyofTonality in Three Symphonies by Carl Nielsen,PhD Diss.UniversityofManchester2004, p. 61–65. 28 SeeEeroTarasti,»Existentialand Transcendental Analysis of Music« in: StudiMusicali 34 (2/2005), p. 223–265.See also otherworksofthe author on this topic: SignsofMusic,Berlin 2002; Mytheetmusique, Paris2003; andEeroTarasti (ed.), Semiotiqueexistentielle (= RevuedeSynthèseàOrientation Sémio- logique116), Paris2003.