• (2019) “On Imaginary Content Analogies in Musico-Literary Imitation”, CLCWeb. Comparative Literature and Culture, Volume 21 Issue 4 (June 2019) Article 3. (original) (raw)

What makes (new) music a "language"? The metaphor of speech resemblance and its relation to musical thinking

In discussing the relationship between music and other forms of articulation this paper deals first with the question of what the notion of music as alanguage might imply for contemporary composers. Secondly, it considers Albrecht \X/ellmer's thoughts on a constitutive "sprach-Bezug" (speech-reference) of music.t This leads to some final remarks on the aesthetic experience of music in its relation to other forms of human expression.

MUSIC, ANALOGY AND THE BEAUTY OF EVERYDAYNESS 1 On Music's Sense: First Movement

2014

The attribution to music of an extra-musical " sense " (that is, a sense not identical with musicological and physical elements and components of music) is highly problematic because its validity is either limited to the subjective conditions of reception of music or irrelevant regarding music itself. Yet also the complete exclusion of this extra-musical " sense " from the field of theoretical possibles is problematic: music risks to be reduced to mere sound, losing its aesthetic relevance. A mediated position is possible: the extra-musical " sense " of music exists in and can be grasped through its analogical (that is, artistic) representation, when music is present within other artistic expressions (such as literature or cinematography). This article assumes a specific form of musical writing characterized by the repetition of the same note and rhythm pattern (deduced by the analysis of baroque and minimalist compositions), and it seeks the extra-musical " sense " of this form of music via the reference to some cinematographic uses of it.

"Analogy, Metaphor and Narrative" In Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia

2014

People often use familiar, concrete experiences to understand and talk about abstract concepts. Music is no exception. An emotion such as happiness may be difficult to describe; however, using spatial experience (e.g., up-down) to talk about happiness makes the description easier (e.g., "things are looking up"). In using metaphor, a person experiences one object in terms of another. Analogy maps a relational structure from one object onto another that may not share perceptual similarities. Music does not share the same features as language; however, the analogy "music is like a language" causes a listener to map relational structure (e.g., can communicate) from language to music. Contrary to popular belief, analogy and metaphor are not simply poetic turns of phrases, but instead influence how someone understands an object. Narrative, similarly, shapes how a person thinks about a sequence of events. In using the program to Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, a listener changes his/her interpretation of the music.

Musical pastiche, Embodiment, and Intersubjectivity: Listening in the Second Degree

Popular music studies, since its inception, has been centrally concerned with the ways music participates in processes of individual and collective identity construction. This dissertation argues that the field must also be concerned with the ways music participates in processes that counter the existential effects of identification. I argue that perception of music as imitation and, more specifically, a form of perception I refer to as "the event of pastiche," is often a significant force in the service of such non-identificatory processes. Through discussions of music perceptible as imitations of 1950s rock & roll, 1960s French pop, 1970s "stadium rock," and 1980s electrofunk, and discussions of the practices of mashup, sample-pop, and chiptune music, I locate the conditions through which musicians and listeners have used sound to foster thought and feeling that they simultaneously affirm as the property of some Other. I offer conclusions based both on textual analysis of recorded and live musical "works" and discourse analysis both from written sources and field research. The dissertation offers new frameworks for the understanding of musical imitation and opens the field of popular music studies to the study of a social function, non-identificatory practice, previously untheorized in the field.

Musicality as a force shaping literary works : an aesthetic study

2019

Le sujet de cet article est une théorie de l'acte créateur. Un commentaire sur la "Grande Improvisation" ['Wielka Improwizacja'], monologue dramatique tiré des "Aïeux" ['Dziady'] d'Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), fournira un exemple de l'expression de la force créatrice. Ces réflexions serviront à introduire la thèse suivante sur la nature herméneutique de l'acte de création poétique: au moment de la création poétique, la conscience se développe grâce au pouvoir formateur de l'imagination qui permet aux dimensions sémantique et musicale de l'oeuvre de se manifester conjointement. Pour mieux comprendre cette thèse, nous la situerons dans le contexte de la philosophie allemande et polonaise de la langue et de la poésie (Herder, Novalis, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friedrich Schlegel, Schelling, Libelt). Nous rappellerons quelques concepts clés: la 'Besonnenheit' (circonspection) de Herder, la 'Selbstdurchdringung des Geist...

Pérez Sobrino, Paula (2018). “Cognitive modeling and musical creativity”. In: Csábi, Z. Expressive Minds and Artistic Creations: Studies in Cognitive Poetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 101-128.

This chapter provides a preliminary account of different cognitive operations in twelve examples of program classical and contemporary music involving music and text. The main goals are (1) to explore the directionality and scope of the mappings between language and music, and (2) to investigate the communicative effects of each communicative operation in a musical work. Metonymy, metaphor, hyperbole, paradox, and irony, are compared and contrasted in order to highlight the dynamism and flexibility of conceptual mechanisms to account for meaning construction in multimodal contexts. While all these operations consist in putting in correspondence two entities, there are observable differences that allow us to draw distinct boundaries among them: Metaphor consist in exploring two concepts, metonymy involves shifting from one concept to a related one, hyperbole overstating a situation, paradox contrasting a situation with its opposite, and irony echoing and contrasting a given situation. The main advantage of adopting a view based on cognitive operations is that they overcome the sometimes rigid two-domain layout of metaphors, while counting on a limited inferential capacity that allows the prediction of possible communicative effects.

Framing Resemblances: Puy, Young, and Goodman on Musical Expressiveness

This paper assumes familiarity with Nelson Goodman's philosophy of art. It responds to James Young's recent and earlier criticisms of Goodman on metaphorical exemplification and musical expressiveness, as well as Nemesio Puy's ensuing reply. In addition to responding, I defend a view that highlights the explanatory role of exemplification, also addressing earlier criticisms by Stephen Davies. Young's central claim is that Goodman's theory ultimately collapses into a quirky variant of the resemblance theory. I counter that resemblance theory is, in fact, an incomplete form of exemplification theory, missing a crucial component: the "frame." A frame is a contextual device that shapes resemblances by directing our attention to specific aspects and making them more salient. Although Puy implicitly acknowledges the role of frames, he does not fully explore their implications. I argue that an orthodox Goodmanian stance on resemblance is unnecessary to support a "frame theory" of expressiveness; the latter suffices.