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Annales des sémiotiques / Annals of Semiotics
6 | 2015
Sémiotique de la musique
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
Per Aage Brandt
Presses universitaires de Liège (PULg)
Electronic version
DOI: 10.4000/signata.1089
ISSN: 2565-7097
Printed version
Date of publication: 31 December 2015
Number of pages: 251-269
ISBN: 978-2-87562-087-3
ISSN: 2032-9806
Electronic reference
Per Aage Brandt, « On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning », Signata [Online], 6 | 2015, Online since
31 December 2016, connection on 29 March 2017. URL :
Signata - PULg
tonality, harmony, PhiloSoPhy
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
Per Aage Brandt
Case Western Reserve University
1. Tones, scales, chords, and phrases
Most music around the world, written or unwritten, is and has been made by
producing sounds (by voice and wind, string, and membrane instruments) in
cyclic temporal sequences, now called measures, or bars, consisting of countable
beats, and in cyclic sequences of these sequences corresponding to larger units that
can host danceable movements or songs.
he sounds in music are mostly produced as intended manifestations of
tones, 1 that is, sounds that have a clear and identiiable F0, a zero formant of a
certain frequency, heard as a pitch. he neural reality is that the auditory pathway
from cochlea to the primary and secondary auditory cortex contains at least six
tonotopic maps and a remarkable diferentiation of perceived sounds as stemming
either from noisy objects or events, from speech, or from music. he neural
distribution of speech versus music is roughly hemispherical, music processing
preferring the right hemisphere. Even non-auditory areas of the prefrontal and the
fronto-temporal cortex seem involved, when complex pitch constellations such as
melodies are processed. 2 Recent research 3 tends to show that the primary auditory
cortex in animals is sensitive to early tonal experiences occurring in a critical period
window for spectral tuning, and that this ‘tuning’ efect of neo-cortical sensory
plasticity stays for the entire adult life of the animal as a reinforced sensitivity to
certain pitch values that have been heard in early infancy. We know that human
Greek: tonos, from the verb teino, to tend (a string), etc. Tones can be characterised by their
basic formant F0 and their timbre by their higher formants (in so-called Fourier analysis).
Sound that are not tones do not ofer this possibility.
Cf. Pickles (2012, p. 238).
Cf. Chang (2007).
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
language acquisition, including phonetic ‘tuning’, takes place in a critical period
window (age 2-5 years); tonal interval hearing is apparently acquired in a similar
window, though its developmental period is not yet determined.
Interestingly, tones are processed and perceived as detached from their
sources, as ‘pure’ pitched sounds. hey are, in that sense, abstract entities on a
par with phonemes, graphemes, and signal colors (which have names 4). Instead of
referring to their source, as noises do, they refer to other tones that they difer from
in time or in pitch space (‘heigths’).
Just like these other abstract percepts - phonemes, graphemes, signal colors
- their combinations, tonal concatenations, melodic phrases, are easily and oten
associated with meanings. So telephone jingles and military trumpet signals can
be compared to syllables and words, lag signals, and algebraic expressions in this
respect. Tones are in fact perceivable abstract symbolic units. hey form inite
sets of elements whose combinations easily become signiiers (expressions) of
signiied meanings (contents): especially performative meanings or informative
messages, such as orders or indications. Tonal semiosis - the complex function
that irstly identiies perceived sounds as tones and secondly identiies combined
tones as communicative signals - is thus a remarkable aspect of the semiotics of
perception. 5
Proper names are oten used for addressing or calling on persons; the syllables
of the names then become vocalized as tones, and the intonation on the pitch and
stress sequence of a proper name can then signify a call for attention, a warning,
an appraisal, an expression of tenderness, etc. - it is a minimal ‘song’ that takes on
the semiotic function of an afective utterance. Intonation proiles on utterances
have comparable semiotic functions. 6 We will return to the semiotic functions in
question later in this text.
Tonal signals are not yet really music, we might think. Still they are afective
communicative phenomena that may be semiotically instructive as to the
evolutionary and developmental origins of music; tonal signals may indeed have
preceded music, and the transition from signal tones to autonomous tonal music
may be rather continuous. 7 Extending and repeating the tonal signals would
produce music in the sense of calling attention to the sounding expression itself
more than to its signaletic meaning (and then eventually forgetting about the latter).
Orange is a color whose name refers to its prototypical fruity source, but red, blue, green, yellow,
brown, black, white etc. are colors whose names do not refer to any source. heir combinations
in lags, for example, become signiicant, symbolic.
If tonal sequences, micro-melodies, are used as signs - intentionally produced and received as
purposely addressing the receiver, thus forming a communicative event -, we might call tones
as structural ‘sign parts’ igures in Hjelmslev’s sense.
See Brandt & Bennett (2015).
Merker (2012) ofers a particularly interesting ethological account of the transition from animal
vocalization to singing, and from there to language.
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
A basic and probably universal property of tones is that they are identiied by
octaves, that is, tone intervals corresponding to multiples of an F0. Octave hearing,
the perception of octave equivalency, is built into the human brain, apparently
by a neural mapping in the auditory thalamus; monkeys and rats are likewise
known to perceive octave equivalency. In human cultures, the octave thus becomes
a privileged tonal space, into which the tonal formants, or series of harmonics,
are projected to form salient intervals with the basic tone (the tonic) and thereby
give rise to the phenomenon of tonal scales. Humans can distinguish about 240
pitches within an octave in the mid-range of hearing. Nevertheless, most tonal
scales across cultures contain only ive, six or seven tones, counting the basic tone.
Some sort of second, third, fourth, ith, sixth, and seventh are oten identiied. 8
Chords, probably an invention emerging relatively late in musical prehistory, are
identiiable simultaneously sounding multi-pitch entities composed of more than
two selected pitch values from a given scale, and oten distinguished by their speciic
pitch-vertical structure. Since chords in scales are identiiable, they combine into
identiiable sequences recognized as what we call harmony. he Pythagorean
foregrounding of the perfect ith and fourth tones within the octave has inspired
Western music theory to build conceptions of harmony on ‘dominant’ ith-based
and ‘subdominant’ fourth-based chords and their relation to the ‘tonic’ chord; we
will return to this principle and propose a critical revision of it. Music without
chords and harmony instead selects tones from scales and sequences them directly
into their melodic phrases, or song-like sequences of single tones. Classical Indian
ragas and Arabic music are examples of this direct relation, which entails extreme
attention to the speciic scale. Chords appear, if they do, 9 between scale and phrase,
so that the phrase relects the changing chords and not only the underlying scale.
his constellation, scale–(chord)–phrase, constitutes the grounding disposition of
what I propose to call tonal architecture. Musical phrases are heard as expressing
or relecting a given scale or a chord-given part of that scale. he phrase is a submelodic entity - a ‘melodeme’, if you will - that is experienced as having a certain
identity and whose proile sounds like a short linguistic expression or a proper
name (hence my remark on names, supra). his imaginary entity, which cognitively
may be a sounding representation of a sort of agent, animal or human, is ‘moving
around’ in the scale-driven tonal space, emphasizing diferent parts of the scale,
and thereby expressing the scale as a whole. he musical process of a ‘piece’ of
music is therefore oten described metaphorically as a narrative. Culturally, scales
Gill & Purves (2009) ofers a wonderful overview of scales in the world’s music, and suggests
that the reduction of pitch values relects a preference across cultures for intervals used and
distinguished by the human singing voice. Indian music subdivides the octave in up to 22 tonal
values and distinguishes at least 72 diferent scales (Vogel [2015]).
he Western major and minor scales - the ionian and the aeolian seven-tone modes,
respectively - are particularly it for chord formation, because their intervals optimally match
their harmonics.
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
again are generally connected to emotional states, as the ancient Greeks knew and
theorized when linking speciic scales (modes, harmoniai) to speciic rhythms and
texts. 10 he phrase will consequently sound as igure on a ‘ground’ created by the
scale and possibly modiied by the chord inserted between scale and phrase. 11 he
general setup of these relations forming the tonal architecture can be summarized
in the following simplifying graph:
Fig. 1. Tonal architecture.
Chords are rhythmic markers, since only one chord can sound at a time, so
chord changes must correlate with regular mesures (bars). he existence of these
regular beat cycles is in fact necessary for the tonal architecture to function. 12 In
very simple cases, one single scale feeds the tones of all chords and all phrases of
a song, such as is the case in the following example, from the Western tradition,
a simple anonymous tune (and text by Ben Jonson, 1616, “Song to Celia”) in D
major, annotated with modern alphanumerical chord notation:
Plato mentions this in his Republic (III), and Aristotle writes in his Politics (VIII): “But melodies
themselves do contain imitations of character. his is perfectly clear, for the harmoniai have
quite distinct natures from one another, so that those who hear them are diferently afected
mellowness of mind, and to one another with a special degree of moderation and irmness,
Dorian being apparently the only one of the harmoniai to have this efect, while Phrygian
creates ecstatic excitement.” (1340a:40–1340b:5, in Barker 1984-1989).
Music without chord structure is, according to frequent obervations, strongly and rather
unambiguously emotional, whereas chords seem to temperate and nuance - or even remove
- emotional reactions to music as experienced in real time. his could be due to the stability of
the scale that is not ‘covered’ by chords.
See Brandt (2009).
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
Fig. 2. Single-scale harmony.
Tonic: D, subdominant: G, dominant: A. D’s parallel minor: Hm. All tones of
the melody and of the chords are from the D major scale, which is therefore very
stable. 13 his Pythagorean chord articulation, and in particular the cadence, here:
D/f# –> G –> D/a –> A7 –> D, that is, tonic to subdominant to tonic to dominant
to tonic (…I will pledge with mine; …I’ll not ask for wine; …I would not change for
thine), was generalized by the circle of iths, when inally the ‘well tempered’ tuning
allowed chords and cadences to sound ‘well’ enough in scales with all twelve tones
as tonic. 14 When this happened, harmony became an art in its own right, one could
say. It opened a chord space made of ‘regions’ to which the phrases could ‘travel’ by
following ‘paths’ of modulation. So for example, the A7 –> D that we just saw could
trigger a further change of situation, such as D7 –> G, and G7 –> C etc. following
a section of the new circle of iths. Such changes of tonic of course afect the scale;
a transition from tonic D to tonic G implies a scale change that substitutes the tone
c for c#. he melodic phrase will now have to use c instead of c#. If D7 leads us to
Gm, the scale changes will be even more important. Why does D7 ‘lead’ anywhere
at all, by the way? Where does the dynamic orientation in D7 –> G(m) come from?
his is one of the questions to be discussed in the following sections.
he stability of the scale apparently contributes to the emotional efect.
he irst circular temperament was described by the organist-composer Arnolt Schlick in the
early 16th century (Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten, 1511), but ‘well temperaments’
did not become widely used until the baroque period. hey were forerunners of the modern
equal temperament. In Arabic music, tuning assumes 24 equal tones in the octave. In equal
temperature, the notions of whole-tone and half-tone intervals stem from the new intra-octave
distribution of equal tone steps. hese notions are meaningless outside of this frame of tuning
(Vogel [2015]).
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
2. Modulation
Temperament changes the situation substantially, allowing multi-tonic scale
shiting. In most cases of written tonal and chord-driven music, the triple relation
scale–chord-phrase is therefore much more complex than what is shown in ig. 1.
If the chord sequence leads to a local change of topic tone or of the scale type, or
both, for example from major to minor and in a diferent key, then the direction
of the determination works both ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’ in the architecture,
which will now look like the following diagram:
Fig. 3. Modulation.
So, in baroque harmony, the modulation inverting tonic and dominant is
common, as illustrated by J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Aria theme which takes us from
tonic G to tonic D. he transition starts in mesure 9, where it is marked by the
melodic c#:
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
Fig. 4. Binary modulation in Bach.
A radical example of tonic-changing modulation can be found in post-bebop
jazz 15 such as John Coltrane’s Giant Steps:
Fig. 5. Ternary modulation in Coltrane.
Notice that to ‘play something’ does not mean the same thing in classical music and in jazz.
A jazz composition is not a complete written digital plan for the occurrence of notes, running
from start to end of a piece. A jazz composition is a ‘tune’, a short sequence of melodic
lines set in some key(s) and underpinned by a series of harmonic ‘changes’ spanning over a
repeated ‘chorus’, oten less than 40 bars long. he ‘playing’ consists in choosing a tempo, an
interpretation of the indicated changes, a phrasing, and ofering, ater the theme, a suite of
choruses displaying free variations based on the main chord structure of the tune.
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
his short theme ofers three tonic bases, each marked by the major seven
chord: B∆, G∆, and Eb∆, each accessed through its dominant seven chord, F#7,
D7, Bb7, some of which are introduced by their dominant-of-dominant minor
seven chord (Am7 –> D7 –> G∆, etc.), a common igure in jazz, of course called
the two-ive-one. 16 By contrast, the subsequent transitions, or “giant steps”, from
B∆ to D7, from G∆ to Bb7, from Eb∆ to F#7, are far from standard. We will return
to the question of how these ‘steps’ work.
In standard jazz, rock, and pop themes, as well as in most romantic 19th century
music, we ind a pattern of modulations that derives much more directly from the
circle of iths. However, it does not travel very far from the main tonic. In fact, it
mainly favors modulation by two whole tone jumps ‘upwards’ and four dominantbased modulations ‘downwards’, in the following manner:
Fig. 6. Standard modulation.
Jazz examples of ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’ modulation could be, respectively,
Spencer Williams’ Basin Street Blues, and Miles Davis’ Solar. 17 In the former, notice
the high ascent from tonic Bb to D(7) and the return to the tonic from there. In
the latter, notice the deep descent from the tonic Cm through Ab7 to Db, which
metamorphoses (through the typical jazz substitution Db7/G7) into a dominant
G9b chord pointing back to Cm 18:
See W. Benzon, “Rhythm Changes”, in this volume.
he standard modulation shown here from tonic C can of course start from any note, and
musicians routinely practise the chord transpositions following from tonic shits or from
instrument tuning.
C minor, not major in this case, but the modulation follows the same schema (ig. 6).
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
Fig. 7. Basin Street Blues Solar.
My points in showing this modulation schema are, irstly that chord changes
create shits in the underlying scales, which is important for the phrasing ‘on top
of’ the chords, both in the theme and in the improvisations that characterize jazz
playing; secondly that the ‘vertical’ logic of the tonal travels here follow a whole-tone
principle - ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’ - which is intuitively clear: musicians can
hear whether the changes are moving one way or the other, ‘up’ versus ‘down’, and
therefore, in what way and direction the scale changes happen in every moment.
hese points are crucial to the technical understanding of the playing. In Basin
Street Blues, the initial scale deformations are the following:
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
Fig. 8. Scale deformation.
he initial scale (Bb major) is maintained, except for the tones that must be
changed due to the following chords (Am – D7), and then again due to its follower
(G7); the result is a series of scale deformations that alter the set of tones available
for adding secondary melodic lines and for improvising new phrases on the tonal
structure of the tune in question. 19
3. he dynamics of modulation
So far, we have only tried to uncontroversially (re)organize some trivial but
important aspects of tonal architecture and modulation. his body of Pythagorean
tonal doxa, however, leaves out some elementary and semiotically interesting
questions. First of all, what are the grounds for the anchoring of tonal harmony
perception in tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords? In what sense does
the dominant chord, especially its septim, make the hearer expect the tonic to
follow (e.g. G7 –> C)? Since we are speaking in terms of vertical modulation,
with signiicant diferences between changes ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’, is there
therefore some sort of tonal gravitation here (G7 –> C7 –> F7 –> Bb …)? 20
In his Harmonielehre, 1911 (1922), Arnold Schönberg, asking himself the
same question, notes the following:
Let us now consider the situation of [the note] c as a central point exerting
two attractive forces, one descending towards f, the other ascending towards g …
he dependency of the g on the c - which is exerted in the same direction as the
attractive force of f - resembles the force of a man who clings to a beam, thus
opposing with his body a force contrary to that of gravity. His attraction is exerted
in the same direction on the beam as gravity’s attraction on him. But the result of
all this is to counter by his own force that of gravity, which justiies the presentation
of the two forces as directly opposed. 21
Using a term by the linguist Leonard Talmy, we could call this deformation of the shape of the
scale a sort of ‘rubber sheet geometry’. he chord-scale system, which explains the inluence of
chords on scales, has been theorized by jazz educators since the 1980ies and is now quite wellknown (see Nettles & Graf [2002]).
I discussed these problems in a chapter of Brandt (1994), “Pour une sémiotique de la tonalité” while presenting a dynamic analysis of he Goldberg Variations heme and its tonal architecture.
What follows here is an extended reformulation of that analysis.
P. 43 in my French translation (1983), from which I translate this passage.
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
Fig. 9. Vertical dynamics in Schönberg.
Schönberg’s dynamic view is not particularly clear, as it is not further unfolded;
but his vision of the c hanging from a g beam while being drawn downwards by
a gravitational f is fascinating as a irst phenomenological account of the relation
between tonic c, dominant (g) and subdominant (f). It corresponds in a certain
sense to our modulation schema in ig. 5, where ‘upwards’ is however interpreted
more literally as a relation, not just to g and the chord G but to the chord ascension
or descent CDE: C<–(G7-Dm)D<–A7-Em)E. Likewise, the direction ‘downward’
corresponds to our modulation C Bb Ab: Ab<–(Eb7-Bbm)Bb<–(F7-Cm)C.
Why does the septim chord call for the nearest ith below it? he dynamics
proposed by Schönberg does not include a consideration of the chords in his
remark since he thinks that the tones themselves are doing the dynamic work, not
the chords. Nevertheless, the septims are strong introducers of tonic chords: G7 –>
C, D7 –> G, etc., and I have to insist on wondering why this is so. Why would G7’s
call be stronger than G’s as such, or than the call of G6 or GΔ.
he Pythagorean doxa, and the oten unclear relations between scales, chords
and phrases, may hide certain aspects of the way chords exist and work. In the
following section, I will introduce a supplementary view of tonal dynamics which
may help clarifying the septim question and in general the mechanisms involved
in the dynamics of modulation.
Suppose that chords are conceptualized cognitively as dynamic attractors
for phrases, so that phrases are experienced as moving between chords the way
animals, for example cats, move between places that are more or less ‘attractive’, for
diferent reasons. If chords are cognized as places supporting phrases, for a phrase
to be ‘in’ such a place will mean that it either uses the chord’s tones or other tones
that sound ‘right’ because they belong to the scale that the chord is suggesting. If a
phrase ‘jumps’ from one place (chord) to another, this event expresses a dynamic
shit in the respective force of the harmonic attraction underlying the shit. If the
phrase p jumps from G to C, it means that G is weakened and C, the stronger
attractor, is strengthened, so G ‘loses’ p whereas C ‘wins’ p. G < C.
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
G(p) –> C(p)
Meaning: space X(phrase y), phrase y in space X
G is weakened as an attractor if it takes on a septim (G7). So the modulation
G7–>C ‘sends’ p from G to C. 22 But why would the septim produce that dynamic
change? his efect may have a igurative explanation.
We think of a C chord as the triad of tones ceg, but iguratively, as a place
in tonal space it could instead be thought of as a whole-tone series cde limited by
half-tones b and f. In this view, cde would be the base of the C chord, which would
have various possible satellites, namely the tones of the scale outside the base that
may be added for various reasons, in particular the ith of the tonic c, for stability.
If a b lat is added to C=cde, then the whole-tone base is expanded into four tones,
C7= blat-c-d-e, so that it now easily ‘spills’ its possible melodic content into the
subdominant base F=fga, in the sense that there are now, iguratively, two halftone thresholds between these bases: blat–>a and e –> f. he involved phrases will
typically use these ‘sensitive’ openings to go from C to F. Similarly then, if a fourth
tone f is added to the dominant base G=gab, the expanded attractor G7=fgab opens
two doors, f–>e and b–>c, which means that we get the dynamics of G7 –> C. 23
And as in the Goldberg example above, G–>A7 by the expansion of gab to gabc#
thus leading to D because c#–>d and g–>f#.
In a well-tempered major scale, the circle of iths will therefore invite
chord modulations in both directions, ‘upwards’ through the dominant iths or
‘downwards’ through the subdominant iths, C –>cdef# –> G –> gabc# –> D… or
C –> blatcde –> F –> elatfga –> Bb.
According to this igurative principle, minor chords are composed of two
whole-tone bases, namely Cm=c-d and elat-f-g, which creates easy communication
between the parallel chords Cm and Eb, since the half-tone door is always open
between them. his structure also explains the frequent cascades Dm->Gm–>Cm–
>Fm etc.; the explanation of the feeling of naturalness to these changes is that the
upper base of one minor chord shares tones with the lower base of the next minor
chord (in that direction). he transition therefore sounds as a dripping descent of
the upper base into a new lower base, like a sort of gemmation.
We can now reconsider Giant Steps (ig. 5) and notice that the shiting tonic
bases B, G, and Eb are connected by whole tone steps. When chords change scales,
which is drastically the case in this theme, a particular challenge for jazz musicians,
they still sound connected if modulations follow whole-tone expansions, as from
B to G: B= b-c#-d# –> d#-c#-b-a-g –> g-a-b=G, and from G to Eb through b-a-gf-elat. he second part of Coltrane’s theme moves upwards: Eb –> G –> B, and the
phrases of the theme follow; from consisting of isomorphic descending lines in
his is the semio-syntax of attractor dynamics presented in Brandt 1992, based on hom 1972.
I irst presented this view in the chapter on catastrophe theory and dynamic analysis of music,
examplifying it by a melodico-harmonic study of the Goldberg Aria theme, in Brandt 1994.
he catastrophe topology makes it possible to model the processes of modulation as dynamical
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
the irst part, the melodic lines now ascend isomorphically, as if explaining to the
listener, carefully and pedagogically, what is happening in the chord changes and
their interrelational whole-tone logic.
Fig. 10. Giant Step whole-tone logic.
here are only four of these tri-tonal ‘Giant Steps’ series, C–E–Ab, D–F#–Bb,
F–A–C#, and B–Eb–G (the one used here). But the principle has been followed
in many other compositions, including Countdown, a reharmonization of Miles
Davis’ Tune Up, and by many jazz musicians, since it appeared in Coltrane’s 1960
creation. 24 In the pianist Bill Evans’ 25 ballad Time Remembered, famous for its
rather uncommon but strangely well-sounding chord changes, we may again ind
the new interrelational principles at work, however in a less schematic form, and
mixed with other transition forms, among which the minor cascades mentioned
he origin of Coltrane’s idea and invention is allegedly to be found in the B part of Rogers and
Hart’s standard Have you met Miss Jones.
Bill Evans is known to be inspired by Claude Debussy’s whole-tone chords and changes, adding
by his versions a particular ‘dreamy’ lavour to the piano voicings used in modern jazz. Reilly
(1993) dedicates an entire chapter of his Evans book to the chord progession and composition
of Time Remembered.
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
Fig. 11. Time Remembered.
How do we, in particular, make sense of Bm9 –> CM7#11, FM7#11 –> Em9 ?
Or, later, Bm9 –> Ebm9 –> Am9 –> Cm9 –> F#m9 ? Or Bm9 –> Gm9 –> EbM7#11?
he following notes of mine indicate how, by which tone connections, these
chord changes could happen and be justiied; G.S. indicates a ‘giant step’, or whole
tone bridging, even of four tones. Evans also expands the use of G.S. remarkably by
allowing whole-tone transitions between minor chords (Bm7 –> Ebm7 –> Am7!).
One must also remember the phrases of the melodic theme to be able to fully follow
these readings:
Fig. 12. Chord logic in Time Remembered.
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
his is of course a very unconventional and extended use of tonal dynamics in
jazz. One might even call it ‘atonal’. he phrasing of the tune oten loats over the
satellites, never enters the bases and in particular of course avoids the tonic; this
is an important part of the esthetics of this tonal style. 26 Surprisingly, whole-tone
modulation combined with ‘Pythagorean’ modulation still sounds quite well.
4. Tonal semiosis
Developing these internal analyses of tonal architecture (linking scales, chords, and
phrases) and tonal dynamics (ith and whole-tone based) will lead us to a global
view of the inner and outer workings that form the semiotic structure of tonal
music. 27 he following is a list of semiotic functions 28 of which we have touched
upon the most elementary; the articulated whole of these functions must be taken
into account to get an adequate picture of the semiotic structure of music, or: of
tonal semiosis.
1. Expression: Sound sequences signify tones, octaves and tonal intervals
(corresponding to “phonetics” in language, where sounds signify phonemes and
syllables). his function of signiication constitutes the basic tonal signiier.
2. Content: he signiied of this tonal signiier is the semiotic function that
shapes musical content (corresponding to “semantics” in language). Its signiier,
which we have mainly studied in this paper, is the tonal architecture of scales and
phrases, modiied by chords in some forms of music, but not in all. Its signiied
helonious Monk’s compositions are extremely rich in whole-tone modulations, and his
‘hearing’ inluenced bebop and post-bebop jazz deeply on the level of chord changes, as
demonstrated in Charles Lloyd’s and Wayne Shorter’s free an very open-minded harmonizing.
he tonal architecture and dynamics discussed here constitute the semio-syntactic expression
that forms and signiies the emotional meaning of a piece of music, on the immanent level of
musical structure. In order to understand the complex phenomenon of performed and situated
music, we need to inscribe this immanent structure in a transcendent (higher-level) structure,
exactly as, in verbal language, we need to see the immanent grammatical form inscribed in the
transcendent, performed and situated text. See Brandt (2014 and 2015) on this point.
A semiotic function, or semiosis, is a simple triad of instances: the signiier, the signiied, the
function of signiication itself. It is recursive, in the sense that signiiers and signiieds can
themselves be functions. In other words, a function can appear in the signiier or the signiied of
another function. his view of semiosis was suggested by the linguist Louis Hjelmslev (1961). In
Brandt (2014 and 2015), I argue that the Danish linguist introduced semiotic recursivity for the
wrong reason, namely to justify a philosophical (logico-positivistic) notion of metalanguage,
and not to analyze instances of complex semiosis. Hjelmslev’s form-substance distinction and
his use of this distinction in the deinition of language likewise, but in a diferent way, blocked
the analysis of complex semiosis. Contemporary structural semiotics generally invokes and
reclaims Hjelmslev’s theory without noticing his two major errors, and therefore misses the
opportunity to open its theory to the analysis of complex semiosis.
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
is the embodied emotional semantics that can be further expressed by dance and
other rhythmical and mental responses 29 of participants (listeners and musicians).
3. he core semiotic ‘utterance’ function relating Expression and Content:
Musical performance consisting in playing or singing, that it, phrasing. his
function essentially involves the musicians’ subjectivity and competence, so it
constitutes an instance of musicking, corresponding in language to the central
function of speaking. 30
4. he superimposed semiotic ‘identity’ function signifying the phrasing as
framed by a particular composition with a signed theme, a title, a disposition in
movements or sections of diferent kinds - a musical text, so to speak. his function
constitutes an instance of enunciation, not as simple and plain playing (musicking)
but as now playing this piece to you, as a present act of intentional, performative
address of a listener by the artist. he enunciative expression (signiier) takes the
core function as it content (signiied). his enunciative expression thus includes
the ixation of the theme and its structure, of this particular genre and style of
the tonal expression, and of this particular personal ‘ingerprint’ in the sounding
‘substance’ of the musical piece. his instance is an essential element in the total
musical experience and therefore in the aesthetics of music.
5. Pragmatic semiosis: he musical ‘utterance’, signiied by the framing
enunciation, signiies in its turn the situation where it is realized. he situation of
realization targeted by the music is ‘meant’ by it in terms of a categorized context
implying an emotional content: a situational meaning. A particular piece of music,
with its characteristic genre and style, signiies its socio-cultural here-and-now
frame of realization; the music transforms an event, which can be a punctual
moment, into an extended temporal interval illed with the intensity of shared
emotion that the event may require and which the music delivers.
6. Musical discourse: In much the same way as language, music, that is, the
character of a piece of music, expresses the situation in which it is performed. In
this sense, the performative semiosis signiies the pragmatic semiosis. Music for
celebration, meditation, mourning, working, locomotion, commerce, dancing,
eating, romance - there are as many genres and subgenres as there are genres
and subgenres of social and cultural situations. hese double genres (situational
and musical), and their instrumental and tonal particularities, such as distinct
rhythms and tempos, scales, chords, phrasing styles, and timbres, constitute what
Emotion is of course both a bodily and a mental response, since we consciously feel it, while also
feeling our bodily response. Separately? his is a nice old philosophical problem (James [1950]).
Enunciation, French: l’énonciation, subjectivity marking, is an aspect of language whose
study was introduced in linguistics by Émile Benveniste (1966). Subjectivity is present in the
morphology (personal pronouns, etc.) and the lexicality of language (especially in performative
terms); it is further present in the phrasing that form sentences, and it is of course predominant
in the vocatives, exclamatives, and other framing signiiers, such as the signature (in writing).
he notion of enunciation was introduced in semiotics by A.-J. Greimas. See Courtés (1991).
On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
is sometimes called musical discourse. Concert music, played for its own sake, is a
curious special case of tautology: music played in situations of making music, and
paying attention to all functions in music-making, and nothing else, in the entire
functional complex of musical semiosis, is in fact developing music, in much the
same way as language used for literature (including poetic recitals, etc.), develops
language. his relexive form of discourse, in music as in language, and in other
complex expressive forms, painting, theatre, ballet, simply develops the expression
itself, its capacity to express. Relexive expressive discourses thus constitute the
whole of what we call art, and constitute the precondition of aesthetic discourse.
he complex system of musical semiotic functions that these points describe
is the following:
Fig. 13. The complex musical semiosis.
his system corresponds rather directly to the complex semiosis of language
(indicated by our grey parentheses). A performed piece of music would correspond
to an actual text. Both texts and musical ‘pieces’ display a signiicant diference
between an immanent conceptual meaning and a transcendent situational
meaning. 31 In language, the diference is easy to demonstrate; “Can you do me a
‘Immanent’ and ‘transcendent’ are terms used in this sense by Hjelmslev (1961); however,
Hjelmslevian doctrine excludes the upper functions - enunciation, rhetoric, discourse, and
situational meaning - from the scope of his ‘glossematic’ science of language, precisely because
they are transcendent.
Tonality, Harmony, Philosophy
favor?” is a question conceptually regarding the modal competence of the hearer,
whereas the standard situational meaning is an address asking for a favor. In music,
a piece of funeral music situationally means to be a part of the ritual of a burial
ceremony, whereas its conceptual meaning is the emotional manifestation of grief.
he music transforms the event into a temporally extended, durative experience
of a certain emotional intensity. he hearer’s emotional reaction to such a piece,
for instance, Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, played at a concert in
the 21st century, is of course yet another efect, depending on all sorts of personal
dispositions; the reader’s emotional reaction to a ‘sad’ poem would equally be
an efect distinct from the poem’s staged sadness and dependent on all sorts of
personal dispositions. In art - musical as well as poetic -, performed as art,
which means separated from any particular situational context, what is conveyed
is neither the conceptual nor the situational meaning, but instead an impact based,
I would like to suggest, on a trained sensitivity to the intense concentration and
tonal shaping of the musicking mind, as manifested by a good performance - an
intense attention to an intense attention, creating not only a moment of shared
attention but a privileged experience of momentarily shared, mutual intentionality,
the experience of beauty. 32 Beauty may be in the ear of the beholder, but then in
the ear of the ear of the musicking other. Esthetics, in a semiotic perspective, is a
domain of shared and mutual experience, neither just of an expressive sound, res
extensa, in Descartes’ sense, nor just of a content, res cogitata, but of the very act of
‘meaning it’, of meaning-the-meaning: res intensa.
Bibliographical References
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Brandt, Per Aage (1992), La Charpente modale du sens. Pour une sémio-linguistique
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Musicians worldwide, both in classical and in jazz and other rhythmic music forms, are always
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On Tonal Dynamics and Musical Meaning
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