Introductory notes to the Semiotics of Music - Philip Tagg's home page

26 P Tagg: Notes on Semiotics of Music A sign typology of music
mal. Moreover, I’m not a Masai herder and I don’t have much idea of what the sound
of a jackal, stylised or not, actually connotes: maybe they attack cattle at night and destroy
your supply of food, clothes and wealth.
Similarly, unless you were alive in 1968, opposed to the US war in Vietnam, had heard
a bit about Hendrix and Woodstock, were reasonably versed in the pop and rock scene
of the time and recognised the US national anthem, you probably wouldn’t be able to
grasp the full connotations of Hendrix’s mega-glissandi on electric guitar at the of his
version of The Star Spangled Banner. 42 And goodness knows what Vietnamese youngsters
in Hanoi, if they survived the bombardments, would have made of it in December
1972: perhaps it would be just another expression of imperialist aggression in the form
of a lot of incomprehensible and hateful Yankee noise.
In order for a sonic anaphone to work properly, then, listeners must be conversant with
the norms of musical stylisation whereby sounds that are not necessarily musical are
incorporated anaphonically into the musical discourse (‘it’s a brook’, ‘it’s a jackal’, ‘it’s
an aeroplane’). Secondly, the connotations of the ‘non-musical’ sound must be understood
(e.g. ‘brooks flow in the countryside and the countryside is nice’, ‘jackals deprive
me and my family of our livelihood’, ‘the US bombing of Vietnam is horrendous’).
But anaphones are not only sonic; they can also act as structural homologies of touch
and movement. These sign types are simply called tactile and kinetic anaphones respectively.
Tactile anaphone
The most familiar example of tactile anaphones is that produced by slowly moving, romantic
string underscores — ‘string pads’, as the sound is called on synthesizers, because
it pads holes and spaces in the sonic texture. Such string wallpaper, performed
of course by several stringed instruments, rarely solo, can be characterised by its lack
of audible attack and decay and by the relative consistency of its envelope — a parameter
listing of synthesizer string presets reveals this in digital detail —, all frequently
enhanced by extra reverb in recording. String pads can produce the effect of homogeneous,
thick, rich, viscous sonic texture and, by haptic synaesthesia, sensations of luxury,
comfort and smoothness. This observation can be substantiated by noting
nomenclature and in-house descriptions of mood music featuring thick (‘rich’, ‘lush’)
string scoring of phenomenologically non-dissonant sonorities (tactile-kinetic connotations
underlined):
� Lullaby Of The City – home, soft and velvety, gently flowing, quiet, intimate
and restful
� Penthouse Affair – fashions, sweetly melodic, slightly nostalgic but sophisticated,
‘dressed in silk and satin’
� Amethysts for Esmeralda – rich and dreamy;
� Girl In Blue – lush, smooth melody;
� Valse Anastasie – romantic, lush;
� Sequence for Sentimentalists – rich, romantic theme. 43
Viscous string pads have indeed acted and still act as sonic emulsifiers in many a voluptuous
Hollywood love scene and no further documentation should be necessary to
prove the point. 44
42. LP Rainbow Bridge, Reprise K 54004, 1970.
43. These examples of string pad tactile anaphones are taken from the Boosey & Hawkes catalogue.