Music and Semiology

Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music. Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey (1990).

In wanting to cover a few different disciplinary approaches to the subject matter of academic research in music, I find such a rounded inquiry inadequate without the direct approach of musicology. Nattiez’s Music and Discourse presented me with such introspect. In Music and Discourse, Nattiez acts as proponent to developing a semiological system for music. He begins by borrowing a conceptual framework from two notable semiologists, perhaps the founders of semiology, Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Pierce. Throughout the book, Nattiez uses a triad equation (“tripartition”): music can be analyzed at the neutral, poietic, and aesthetic levels; this is the structure of his music semiology. Within this basic equation, under the poietic and aesthetic processes, Nattiez breaks it down to: “Producer”-> Trace<-Receiver.” (p. 17) We locate a message, a piece of music for example, in the flux of this, ready to receive our semological thought, and so on. I don’t want to elaborate further here on Nattiez’s reconstruction of a semiology for music. He makes several interesting claims throughout the book that shed light on issues of the matter, of the history of attempts to analyze music; these will be my focus.

Context
Beyond defining a semiological toolkit, Nattiez discusses the concept of music. The troubled nature of talking about music is summarized in two points: “Do we have a stable definition of music, and the musical, available to us?” And, “Is it legitimate to speak of “music” with respect to cultures that do not have such a concept, that distinguish between music and nonmusic?” Thus, Nattiez sets the grand context of discussion in his work as a “western, North American-European context.” (p. 41)

The musical fact
The old binary of music-noise is brought up here. Nattiez goes in depth to discuss how we may reach distinction between the two. By defining one, we reach the other. He cites the work of John Cage, who is famous for, among other things, 4’33”, a silent piano composition. This piece is often referred to in discussions pertaining to the music or noise question. Nattiez concludes in part; “The distinction between sound and noise has no stable, physical basis, and the way we employ these two terms is culturally conditioned from the outset.” (p. 46). Also, in one of Nattiez’s humorous observations: “It is hardly surprising that, at any given time, composers who have adopted sounds that others consider “noise” would either like to be considered revolutionaries, or have come to be regarded as such by others…” In the end, there is no consensus between what is noise and what is sound (p. 47).