Copyright by Alex Michael Newton 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Alex Michael Newton Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Semiotics of Music, Semiotics of Sound, and Film: Toward a Theory of Acousticons Committee: James Buhler, Supervisor David Neumeyer Robert Hatten Eric Drott Janet Staiger Semiotics of Music, Semiotics of Sound, and Film: Toward a Theory of Acousticons by Alex Michael Newton, B. Music, M. Music Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2015 Acknowledgements Thanks to all my family and friends who have been so supportive through this difficult but rewarding process. Too many have helped me along the way to recount here, but know that I am forever grateful for your wisdom and help. A special thank you to my parents, Mary and David, and my sister, Jesse, who pushed me to pursue my academic path and my desire for music from the very start. Thanks to my colleagues at the University of Texas for advice and help over the years. A special thanks to the other members of our dissertation writing group, Matthew Bell, Eric Hogrefe, Cari McDonnell, and Scott C. Schumann. Thank you for holding me accountable for my work and for making time to give helpful feedback and editing. Thank you to the members of my committee. Without your advice and insight I never would have completed this project. A special thank you to Dr. Robert Hatten for providing not just one, but two rounds of copyediting on the document. Thank you to my advisor, Dr. Jim Buhler. I am in debt to the many, many hours you have given me patiently reading over my writing, sharing and discussing ideas with me, and for helping me turn those ideas into this dissertation. Not to mention all of the help you have given me over these past six years developing several other side projects along the way. Finally, to my partner, Allison, who spent countless hours reading through chapters, listening and discussing my ideas endlessly, and offering emotional support during the most difficult of times let me first say simply: thank you. Now let me show you my gratitude by offering you the same support. iv Semiotics of Music, Semiotics of Sound, and Film: Toward a Theory of Acousticons Alex Michael Newton, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: James Buhler Topic theory, the study of conventional musical figures, has emerged as a significant method of analysis for music scholars in the last thirty years. Much current research critically interprets and contextualizes topics from a variety of musical eras and styles, including film music. However, studying film presents music scholars with a new set of issues since the filmic medium not only includes visual signs in the form of the image track, but also another category of sonic signs in the form of sound design. In film sound tracks, musical signs and sonic signs frequently butt up against one another and even pass into one another’s domain. My dissertation seeks to bridge the current gap between music figures and sound figures by arguing that musical figures are best considered as a special case of general sound figures that I call acousticons. Acousticons are conventionalized figures of music or sound (e.g. reverb, fidelity) and they exist on a continuum defined by the poles of purely musical codes on the one hand and purely sonic codes on the other. Chapter 1 presents a general model of the acousticon using Peirce’s modes of the sign. It interrogates iconic models presented in media studies and iconography as possible corollaries to the sound track. Chapter 2 and 3 present case studies of acousticons. Chapter 2 gives a case study of acousticons of the subjective interior in the form of the v lowered submediant and subjective, point-of-audition sound. Chapter 3 considers how films deploy reverberation and low fidelity recordings acousticonically to bring about different types of nostalgia. Chapter 4 considers the potential for acousticons outside of the sound track medium. It looks at how acousticons might work in audio branding. Specifically, it looks at the construction of sonic logos, product sound, and the use of popular music in advertising and product design. vi Table of Contents Introduction Musical Topics, Sonic Signs, and How a Sound Track Works ......... 1 Acousticons in Amadeus: Fidelity and the Interior ........................................ 5 Music Semiotics and Conventional Sound, or, What is a Musical Topic? .... 8 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 1 Toward a Theory of the Acousticon ..................................................... 20 Fantastic Gallops: Representing Horses in Cinematic Origin Myths .......... 21 Coconut Horses and Iconic Cowboys .......................................................... 29 Musical Topics and Iconograpy ................................................................... 44 Unsound Cavalry: Acousticons in Apocalypse Now .................................... 56 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 2 Acousticons of the Interior .................................................................. 70 Acousticons of the Monstrous Interior in 1930s Horror Film ...................... 74 The Organ and the Mad Genius: Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ...................................................................... 76 The Piano: Feigning Human in Dracula's Daughter .......................... 87 Headphone Sounds of the Interior ................................................................ 98 Head Sound: Men, High Fidelity, and the Playboy .................................... 103 Emasculation, Inner Trauma, and the Classic Hollywood Model ..... 103 The Bachelor Playboy and High Fidelity Sound ............................... 111 Leakage: Women, Sexuality, and the Confession ...................................... 121 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 135 Chapter 3 Sounds Like the Good Old Days: Acousticons and Nostalgia .......... 137 Authenticating the Past: Nostalgic Modes and Moods .............................. 142 Restoration, Reflexivity, and Reverb in American Graffiti and Dirty Dancing ...................................................................................................... 152 "Phil"-ing Space in Dirty Dancing .................................................... 160 vii Conclusion .................................................................................................. 172 Chapter 4 The Acousticon, The Hyperreal and Audio Branding ....................... 174 Brands, Logos, and The Face ..................................................................... 183 Audio Branding .......................................................................................... 187 A Semiotics of the Sonic Logo ......................................................... 187 Sonic Logos, Jingles, and Brand Songs ..................................................... 188 Product Sound ............................................................................................ 198 Case Study: Nick Drake and the VW Cabrio ............................................. 200 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 209 Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 214 viii Introduction: Musical Topics, Sonic Signs, and How a Sound Track Works There is a moment near the beginning of Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus (1984) that will particularly resonate with music theorists and their inclination toward analysis. In it, Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) stumbles upon a musical score left on the conductor’s podium by Mozart (Tom Hulce), as seen in Figure 1. It is the Serenade No. 10 for 13 Wind Instruments in B-Flat Major, K. 361 with the score left open to the third movement, the Adagio. The film unfolds mostly in flashbacks and Salieri, now an old man, describes to a visiting priest while the image track shows a younger version of the composer inspecting the score. As he looks, the musical notes before him magically transform from written notation in the image track to musical sound in the sound track. Meanwhile, the older Salieri describes what he heard: On the page it looked nothing, the beginning simple, almost comic; just a pulse— bassoons and basset horns—like a rusty squeezebox. Then, suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there unwavering, until a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight. This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the very voice of God. Figure 1a: A young Salieri looks at Mozart’s score 1 Figure 1b: Reverse shot of Salieri Although Salieri attends a performance of the Serenade just prior to this moment, the film suggests that Salieri’s deeply moving experience with the work is one brought about directly from the musical score. It is as if the Italian composer’s mind, seeing the notes on the page, works to generate the music that