On the Semantic and Non-semantic Nature of Music
Shanshan Liu · Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Education, Management, Arts, Economics and Social Science (ICEMAESS 2017) · 2017
Is music semantic or non-semantic?For a long time, there have been different opinions, but most people hold the bias that music is non-semantic and neglect research on the semantic nature of music.This paper made an attempt to discuss the semantic and non-semantic nature of music.Music not only means its pure form, but conveys emotions through "sounds" and "tunes", which always contains some meaning.As for the non-semantic nature of music, it lies in that musical material is not semantic and musical sounds play a decisive role.In the long history of music, semantic interpretations of music are commonly seen, but there are many vague "nonsemantic" words in real life and literary works, and something non-semantic also exists in music. The Semantic Nature of MusicMusic conveys emotions with "sounds" and "tunes", which always contains some meaning.It implies and conveys something, rather than simply refers to its pure form.In different art forms, meaning is conveyed and interpreted in various ways and with particularities.In the long history of mankind, people use music to express "sincerity, goodness, beauty, sounds and tunes" and innermost emotions, feel the emotions of others and arouse people's love for nature, hometowns, nations and motherlands and so on.From this, it can be seen that music is semantic.Compared with other art, music has its own characteristics, which is abstract.Other art is based on the subjective thoughts and emotions of authors, and then analyzed through the arrangement of plots, description of environment and action of characters, objective bases for which can be found in real life.However, music is different.For example, when we are enjoying music, no character comes on stage and no environment or scene comes into sight, but these will naturally appear in our minds with the progress of music.Though there is no narrated storyline, we can feel its existence and perceive some events as expected.Music gives us a strong feeling, which we can comprehend and feel especially when finding a simple hint from the title or making an analysis: like literary works, music will conform to its title, to let us know "that's the way it is".We usually have the following feelings in the psychological experience of the art of music: the continuous upward progress of musical series makes us feel positive, enthusiastic and optimistic; downward progress makes us relaxed, upset or see a gloomy future; melodies like waves are always connected with something lyrical and tender; parallel progress triggers motion with quietness, generating a strong desire for change (motivation); skips are lively and bouncing; leaps are full of passion and high-pitched...This requires us to use vivid and diversified musical language to lively reproduce various emotions expressed.From this point, it can be seen that the semantic nature of music is as prominent as that of literature. Particularity of Music The particularity of the content of musical worksMusical works are so strongly appealing that the charm of beautiful music is sometimes irresistible.Even an audience uneducated in music could comprehend and recognize the beauty of music at some time.It is because of the special content represented in musical works.There is no doubt that music can arouse our emotion.Once we are immersed in music, we will