Vladimir Karbusicky
Foreword
Signs and Music
Constantin Floros
Medieval monophonic music
Christoph Lischka
Sign change in music notation
Ivanka Stoianova
20th century musical graphics
Mei-chu Wang
Chinese musical notation
Albrecht Schneider
Music, sound, language, writing.
Transcription and notation in comparative musicology and music ethnology
Literary report
Christoph Lischka
Semiotics and musicology
Enclosure
Hans Wald
Congratulations. Or: the latest from Klagenfurt
Discussion
Karin Böhme-Dürr
What are the effects of media specific codes on reader, listener and viewer?
Signs and music
Vladimir Karbusicky, University of Hamburg
Summary. In contrast to language, the communicative pragmatic function is not
constitutive for music. Seen from an anthropological perspective, the raw material of
sound first had to be "rationalized". This is what gave priority to construction
and energetics, which determine the forms of movement in variable time Japses (periods,
phases). Although signs may be integrated into this substratum, their rote remains
secondary to the principles of repetition and variation, which tend to deprive them of
their semantic properties (as in an icon that is used as a bass Pattern). Musical
structures are not sign complexes a priori, they are rather surviving documents of the
creation of signs which took place in anthropogenesis.
The oldest notations of medieval monophonic
music
Constantin Floros, University of Hamburg
Summary. Among the most important contributions of the Middle Ages to the development of
music were the introductions of polyphony (on the basis of the choral) and of musical
scores (in the form of the neumatic notation). While the oldest Latin neumatic manuscripts
date from the 9th century A. D., Greek manuscripts with ekphonetic notation had already
been written in the 8th century, a tradition which was continued in Old-Byzantine and
Old-Slavonic church music. Byzantine and Slavonic musical manuscripts contain four
different systems of notation: two Byzantine and two Slavonic, known as Coislin Notation
and Chartres Notation and as Sematic Notation and Kondakaria Notation respectively. All of
them are modeled an the grammar of verbal language and have anthropomorphic features (e.g.
the division of the notes into somata, pneumata, and aistheseis, i.e. body, spirit, and
senses). Historically, Byzantine Notation developed in a straightforward way so that its
stages are reconstructable and can be of help in the task of dating undated manuscripts.
In the typology of neumes five of the seven Byzantine classes have exact parallels in the
Latin neumes, and among the figures, formulas, and phrases common in Old-Byzantine church
music remarkably many reappear in the Gregorian Choral. These are striking arguments for
the thesis that Western choral notation was directly adopted from Byzantium.
Sign change in occidental music notation
Christoph Lischka, University of Cologne
Summary. The author attempts a semiotic reconstruction of certain principles of Western
music notation in its historical transformation. He applies the conceptual apparatus of
pattern theory and develops fundamentals of "formal parasemantics", which permit
a precise description of the meaning aspect of notational systems for music. Two basic
types of notational systems are distinguished: structural-descriptive notations, which are
oriented at the auditive structures of perception, and algorithmic notations, which are
based an the operational patterns of sound production. The two notations are ultimately
relatable as is illustrated by an example from recent notational practice: the fixation of
musical thought in algorithmic languages within computer music.
20th century musical graphics
Ivanka Stoianova, University of Paris VIII
Summary. Starting with a critical analysis of classical Western music notation, the
author investigates the merits and limits of those musical graphics which have developed
in opposition to classical Western notation after World War II. Classical scores present
music as static "pieces" by introducing a fixed system of co-ordinates which
creates a space of time in which music takes place according to pre-existent schemata. In
classical scores the sequence of pitches becomes the essential parameter, it is organized
an the basis of discrete units ("notes") and presented in linear order according
to the model of a verbal text. In contrast, musical graphics focus attention an the
dynamics of the sound, they give prominence to parameters other than pitch, they emphasize
the continuity of the sound movement and avoid dividing it into prefabricated discrete
units, they take the context of music into account and leave room for variation in the
musical performance. After serial and post-serial compositions had caused the maximal
digitalization of all musical parameters, the music of the fifties rediscovered the
importance of musical gesture. In order to do justice to the gestural character of music,
musical graphics abstain from determining an abstract space of time; they are no longer
organized by lines and need no longer be read in a linear way, but allow the eye to move
more or less freely in many directions. As is demonstrated in examples by Earl Brown, John
Cage, Anastis Logothetis, Sylvano Bussotti, and Dieter Schnebel, musical graphics resemble
post-modern art in that they leave the Interpreter the freedom to decide whether something
is beautiful, or even musical.
Chinese musical notation
Mei-Chu Wang, Taipeh
Summary. The systems of music notation used in China are analyzed semiotically with
respect to their sign modality as defined by Peirce. In general, the symbolic sign
modality dominates, although it seldom appears in isolation. Iconic aspects are prominent
in the Pí-guØ-pü Notation of the chapter-Töu-hü" of the Liyi.
Indexicality is present in the Qü-xiän-pü Notation used in the literature
of religious Daoim. It is emphasized that the sign modality of a notational device is not
given absolutely but depends an the perspective of the interpreter.
Music, sound, language, writing.
Transcription and notation in comparative musicology and music
ethnology
Albrecht Schneider, University of Hamburg
Summary. While historically oriented musicology usually concentrates an written
compositions and investigates manuscripts as source material, ethnomusicology and
comparative musicology are primarily interested in the sound of actually played music and
in the processes and contexts of music-making. Thus, in ethnomusicology recordings of more
or less impro-vised music are used as source material and scores are the result of
subsequent transcrip-tions. The task of transcribing Non-Western music poses complex
auditory, cognitive, and methodological problems, since the classical European notation
does not take account of the sound dimension of this music.
Discussion
What are the effects of media-specific codes on reader, listener and
viewer?
Karin Böhme-Dürr, University of Munich
"Everything that is said instead of being shown, is a loss for the
audience".
François Truffaut
Summary. Mass media differ in their modes of presenting information. Media-specific codes
are not just decoration but rather systems of signs which may have communicative function.
Therefore, the question is posed: what effects can these codes have? The present article
has two main goals: first, to propose a classification of the codes used in traditional
and "new" media, and second, to discuss the results of contemporary research an
the effects of media-specific codes.
