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Review: Nattiez's 'Music and Discourse': Situating the Philosophy

Author(s): Anthony Pryer


Reviewed work(s):
Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music by Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Source: Music Analysis, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 101-116
Published by: Blackwell Publishing
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/854172
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101

ANTHONYPRYER

NATTIEZ'S MUSICAND DISCOURSE: SITUATINGTHE


P HILOSOPHY

Current philosophicalschools are divided along lines which reflect with


uncannyaccuracythe diplomaticalliancesof eighteenth-century Europe.The
two mainaxes- the Anglo-Austrian school (Russell,Wittgenstein,Popperand
the American,Quine) and the Franco-Prussianschool (Hegel, Nietzsche,
Barthes, Foucault and Derrida) - have, over the years, glowered at each
other'smanoeuvreswith a curiousmixtureof suspicionand disdain.As in the
eighteenthcentury,each of the axeshas acquireda numberof satellitearmies:
Moscow and the Mediterraneansare loosely alignedto the Paris-Berlinaxis,
while the Scandanaviansfavourthe Anglo-Austrians.And, just to complete
the resonancesof history,the Poles can stillbe foundfightingvaliantlyon both
sides. Nowadays,of course,the two centreshave foundedcoloniesaroundthe
world with the Oxbridge-Viennaview favoured in English-speaking
communities,and the Paris-Berlinperspectiveamongst Francophiles.The
recent book by the French born (but Canadian domiciled) Jean-Jacques
Nattiez is, at one level, but a faint echo - a 'trace',as he mightsay - of such
intellectualpower-broking.
However, even if this simple characterisation helps to clarifythe distant
genealogyof Nattiez'sapproach,and his modes of explanation,it can hardly
do justiceto the throngof ideas,the embarras d'horizons that litterthe pagesof
his, by now renowned,Music and Discourse.lHaving such a complexityof
texture is both its strength and its weakness. Nattiez has enriched our
perspectiveby his receptivityto all 'socialfacts'relatedto music.He has taken
the bold step of including events and attitudes (as well as written works)
within the purview of music analysis.We find in the pages of this book
intricatecartographies of the productionand receptionof the Boulez-Chereau
1976 Ring cycle (p. 76), of Webern'sattitudeto music of the past (p. 147),
and of the gradualassimilationof noise and sound into the world of music
(p. 49). Whethersuch diagramsconstitutegenuineadvancesin explanation,or
are simplyiconic dramatisationsof such explanation-problems is, of course,

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102 ANTHONYPRYER

anotherquestion. What is clear is that such an approachmakes a serious


attemptto place analyticand aestheticbeliefs in a cultural,or at any rate a
communal,context. In this respect Nattiez approaches- though he would
denyany metaphysicalconsequences- both the Hegelianview that 'Idea' is
revealedin the unfolding of human events (historybecomes, in Bertrand
Russell'shappyphrase,'a kindof jelliedthought'(Russell1946, p. 706)), and
the Wittgensteiniannotion that language and art are a 'form of life'
(Wittgenstein1953, 241). Many branchesof philosophyare now bringing
togetherthe analyticand the contextual,painfullyand cautiously:the danger
is, of course,that a prematureembraceof these approacheswill producenot
philosophieswith enduringaxioms,but a philosophicalbozted joujoux.Bright
ideaswill be takenout of the toyboxand used as characterwitnessesin verbal
dramasratherthan as stages in logical arguments,and they will become the
sponsors of counter-suggestionrather than of proof and refutation.Such
tendencieshaveenticednot onlyNattiez,theyhaveenticedus all.
This book by Nattiezhas had a long history.In its firstincarnationit was a
volumeentitledFondements d'unesemiologiede la musique(Nattiez 1975). This
quicklyestablishedNattiez as one of the leading theoristsin the semiologyof
music and, following the publication of a landmark article by Jonathan
Dunsby (1983), Nattiez achievedthe status of an eponym in the world of
music analysis.His well-known'tripartition'of the analytic approachwas
borrowedfrom the work of the French linguisticsexpert,Jean Molino. The
method engages with a 'total musical fact' by examining separatelyits
processesof production(poietics),its immanentstructures(the neutrallevel),
and the ways in which it is received(esthesics).Over the years, the detailed
applicationof this methodhas continuedto causea numberof problemsin the
realmof theoryas well as practice.For this reason,MusicandDiscourse is not
simplya revisedversionof Fondements but a 'completely rewrittenwork' (p. xi)
whichhas 'takeninto accountthe numerousreviews of the Fondements'(p. xii).
In point of fact, Music and Discourseis actuallya translatedversion of the
rewritingwhich first appearedas Musicologiegeneraleet semiologie(Nattiez
1987). The Frenchversioncontainsin its closingsectiona seriesof dictionary
articleson melody,harmony,tonalityand rhythm;only part of this material
has been adapted and incorporatedinto the final chapter of the English
version.In addition,however,the Englishversioncontainssome new obser-
vationson plot andseriation,andthereis a new sectionon analysisandtruth.
Assessingthe philosophicalnotionsembeddedin anytext requiresa careful
attentionto the nuancesof words. One must be mindfulof the languagein
which the thoughtswere conceived,but most of my referenceswill be to the
Englishversionof Nattiez'swork(I thinkwe can speakhere of a versionrather
than a simple translation),not only because CarolynAbbate'stranslationis,
on the whole, verygood, but becauseit has been overseenby Nattiezhimself.

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NATT I E Z ' S M USICA ND DISCo URSE 103

Of course,it is not reallypossibleto understandthe Englishtext if one plays


too earnestlyat being a 'naive reader', any more than it is possible to
understandmusic by tryingto assumethe mantle of Donald Tovey's 'naive
listener'(Tovey 1949, p. 271). But, with that caveat,the Englishversioncan
be seen to stand on its own, if only because it represents the latest
comprehensivestatementof Nattiez's position. We must also bear in mind
thatNattiez'sideasarein a constantstateof development.MusicandDiscourse
is, afterall, only the firstcf severalprojectedvolumes:we are promisedmany
times throughoutthe book that difficultproblemswill be clarifiedin Volume
2, and on at least one occasion(p. 183, n. 1) we aretold that we will be given
more detail in Volume 3. To some extent, then, Nattiez could claim that
scrutinyof his workat this stage is almostbound to misrepresenta theoryin
progress, and that such scrutiny would produce, as it were, the critical
equivalentof Zeno'sparadoxof the arrowwhich,becauseit seemedfixed at a
single moment in its flight, was concludedto be motionlessthroughoutits
journey.One can only replythat it is actuallythe arrowthat one is interested
in, not an analysisof its journey.The formeris a philosophicalposition (no
matterhow tentative),the latterbelongsto the historyof ideas.
Severalreviewersof the originalFondements weretakento taskby Jonathan
Dunsby for judging Nattiez's work from a 'largely irrelevant'aesthetic
perspective,or 'in termsof principleratherthanpractice'(Dunsby1983, p. 29).
These stricturesseem undulyharsh,given that the book was clearlytryingto
ground the practices of semiotic analysis in some overall theoretical
standpoint. In Music and Discoursethere can be little doubt about the
intellectualproject.We read:
How can we reconcile formal and hermeneutic description, the analysis of
the neutral level, and a material trace, with a web of interpretants?This,
indeed, is the fundamental question posed by the present state of
semiological research ... The whole of this book is an attempt to answer
this question. (p. 28)
Such a reconciliationcannotbe broughtabout by a mere revisionof analytic
practices,for ffie proposedchangesin practicewouldhaveto be governedby a
critical assessmentof the interpretativeimplicationsof such practices;and
those implicationslead us straightinto theories about the definitionof the
musical work, the limits, if any, of legitimateinterpretation,the nature of
meaningfillnessin music, and so on. Such problemscannot but help draw
music analystsinto the 'invisiblecollege' (p. 33) of researchersin the field of
semiologyand, in any case, as Nattiezhimselfpointsout, his own thoughtson
thesemattersareofferednot 'as a doxa,but as elementsin a dialogue'(p. 197).

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104

II
Perhapswe should begin such a dialoguewith the
'totalsocialfact' (p. ix). We are told (p. 34, n. 33) assertionthat music is a
that Nattiezborrowedthis
phrasefromthe workof the Frenchanthropologist
MarcelMauss,whosemost
famouswork, Essaisur le don (1925), examinedthe
functionsof the exchangeof gifts within society. Theutilitarianand symbolic
'total social fact' is repeatedfrequentlythroughout notion that music is a
seemsobviousto assumethatit mustbe an initiatingNattiez's book and so it
his argument.But what,exactly,does this notion and governingconceptin
mean and how does it relate
to the detailof Nattiez'sinvestigations?
There is, of course, some difficulty with the
concept of a 'fact'.
Traditionally,this termhas been used to referto something
or empiricallydecidable.It is often contrasted directlyobservable
with conceptssuch as 'fiction'
and 'evaluation',thoughphilosophershave been
the implicationsof these distinctionsof late.2 gettingmore nervousabout
Nevertheless, the word 'fact'still
tendsto implya descriptionof how the worldis
thanhow it might be construedor evaluatedby generallyagreed to be, rather
sundryindividuals.We can
probablyall agreethat, as Nattiez says (pp. 74-5),
cycleat Bayreuthin 1976, and that this eventis a Boulez conducteda Ring
of the word. But what of Boulez's assertions 'fact',at least in some sense
(reportedon p. 138) that the
structural characteristics he describesin his analysisof TheRiteof Sprzng
there, and I don't care whether they were put 'are
there consciously or
unconsciously,or with what degree of acuteness they
composer's]understanding'? informed [the
Do these structuresform part of the total social
factthat is music?
Nattiez comes face to face with this problemwhen he
refusalto classifychordsin his Coursdecomposition. discussesd'Indy's
Nattieztells us that
nothing prevents us from ... describing
superimpositions of notes
empiricallypresent, according to a given, culturally
stock' [here he means the Western harmonic established 'taxonomic
system], and thus recognizing
within d'Indy's works the presence of ... chords
that he himself would not
have acknowledged. (pp. 21 4-15)
Interestingly
enough,however,when he describessuch features,he
callthem harmonic facts, but harmonic does not
'phenomena' (p. 214). This
description,
unlikethe notion of 'facts',suits Nattiez'sgeneral
since it focuses on what is perceivedby the mind (or purposesmuch
better
a
thanwhatis supposedto be 'out there'.3Asthe book culturalgroup)
rather
aninevitable shift away from the notion of progresses
thereis
'fact' towards that of
'phenomenon', especiallyin Chapter4 ('The Statusof the SoundObject')
in
Chapter6 ('The Objectof MusicAnalysis'). and
Again,it is not difficultto establishthe less than
completeappropriateness

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NATTIEZ'S MUSICAND DISCOURSE 105

of the two other conceptsin Mauss'sexpressionas adoptedby Nattiez. After


all, the bald insistenceof the phrasethat musicis a 'social'fact leavesus rather
unpreparedfor one of the majortwists in Nattiez's thesis - that 'the formal
substanceof music evolvesintrinsically, autonomously'(p. 148; the italicsare
his). The detailsof this idea, and the ways in which it mightbe squaredwith
the notionof musicas a culturalproduct,seem not to be fullyexpressedin this
book, and this makes the sudden assertionabout autonomy seem merely
paradoxicalalongsidethe constant talk of music being a 'total social fact'.
Nevertheless,as Nattiez is obviouslyaware,a case for the autonomyof only
selected aspects of art within a culturecan be made and, indeed, has been
made by several writers.4For our purposes, however, perhaps the most
relevantaccountof this problemis to be found in an articleby JeanMolino
(the dedicatee of Music and Discourse)on the art historianHenri Focillon
(translatedas the 'Introduction'to Focillon 1989). Molinoremindsus that art
is alreadyan anthropologicalcategory,so that whateverhappenswithin it is
still, in some sense, part of culture. Moreover, he relates the idea of
independentformswithinthe artisticworldto KarlPopper'snotion of a world
of objectivestructures(Popper's'World 3'), to go alongsidethe world of
materialthings ('World 1') and the subjectiveworld of minds ('World2')
(Popper 1972, passim). Of course, the notion of 'a world of objective
structures'does seem to implythat at some stagewe have to explainwhether
this is, or is not, a metaphysicalentity.SinceNattiezbelievesthat 'metaphysics
is dead' (p. 106), we would have to expect fromhim some other explanation
for the autonomouslife of the formalsubstanceof music, perhapsalong the
lines of Popper'sown notion that formschangeby respondingto 'the logic of
situations'(Popper1957, p. 149).5
Popper does get a mention in Music and Discourse(p. xii), but not in
relationto this problem.However,Nattiez'scommitmentto the autonomyof
some aspectsof music is presumablyreflectedin his decisionto call the book
'Music and Discourse' ratherthan 'Music as Discourse'. Clearly,also, the
notion of therebeing some kind of patchy,selectiveautonomyin music must
have some bearingon whetherthere is, as Mauss'sphraseimplies, a totality
aboutmusicas a socialfact. Is the term 'total'supposedto imply,for example,
some kindof unendingchainof explanationfor the musicalworld?
Nattiez'sstruggleswith this problemfinallycome to the surfacewhen he is
discussingwhich elementsan analystmight select for analysis,a processthat
he describesas 'the autonomizationof variables'.He tellsus that
In Chapter 2 I spoke of music in a Maussian way as a 'total social fact' but
I need to differentiatebetween variables that are extrinsic in comparison to
the musical text stricto sensu [he means things such as the physical gestures
a performermight make during a recital], and intrinsic variables. (p. 143)

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106 ANTHONY PRYER

This is becausethere are differentkindsof musicalphenomenaand they can


be recognisedby the particularset of variablesthey happento privilege.It is
the taskof musicanalysisto 'identifytheseprivilegedvariablesand ... describe
the transitionfrom one collectionto another'(p. 144). In spite of the use of
the word 'describe'this does rathersound as if the totalityof the socialfact of
music is somethingthat has to be constructed(or reconstructed?)by music
analysts.Eitherway, thereis morethan a little epistemologicalobscurityhere.
Moreover,a similarkind of uncertaintyaboutthe totalisationof music seems
to underlie his ambiguousdescriptionof the tripartitionas having three
'relatively autonomouslevels'(p. 92; my italics),and alsohis need to investthe
so-called neutral level of music (for example, a score) with the cure-all
connectivetissue of the 'trace',whichhe describesas an 'amorphousphysical
reality'(p. 16) in which 'the symbolicformis embodied'(p. 12). (Those who
wish to knowwhetherNattiez reallybelievesthat metaphysicsis dead should
studyhis statementson the notionof a 'trace'.)6
All thingsconsidered,the Maussiansloganof the 'totalsocialfact' seems,at
best, only to have added an unnecessarylayerof confusionto the subtle and
complexinvestigationswhich Nattiez has undertaken.7 His account,for very
goodreasons,at everyturnexactlycallsinto questionthe totality,socialityand
factualityof the phenomenathat we includeunder the notion of music. Not
surprisingly, the complexityof his semiologyhas faroutstrippedthe theoretical
framework of Maussthe socialanthropologist,workingin the 1920s - and, we
mightadd, the assumptionsandimplicationsof thatframework.

III
We should now turn from anthropologyto semiology. Most attempts at
semiologybegin with the conceptof the 'sign'and Nattiezfollowsconvention
in this respect. He begins with a quotation from one of the founders of
semiology,Ferdinandde Saussure(1983):
the linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name, but a concept and a
sound image. The latter is not the material sound - a purely physical thing
- but the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression it makes on
our senses ... I call the combination of concept and sound-image a sign ...
and ... replace concept and sound-imagerespectivelyby signifiedand signifier
(PP. 34).
So,for Saussure,all of these thingsseem to be mentalevents.Whenthe word
'music'is spoken (a specific utterancelike this is given the term parole) it
makesan impressionon our minds (that is, it becomes a signifier).It then
unitesin our minds with concepts (signifieds)drawnfrom our background
cultureand our culture-specificlanguagestructure(known as lang2Xe). Thus
thesound-imageand conceptscome togetherto signalour notion of music- a

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NATTIEZ 'S MUSIC AND DISCOURSE 107

notion which, presumably,also exists in our heads ratherthan 'out there' in


the worldto be trippedover.
It is importantto get these thingsexactlyrightfor severalreasons.Firstly,if
the signifierand the signifiedare both mental events then at least we can
imaginethat they come togetherin the mind; the 'sign', in other words,has
somewhereto exist even if the term reallydescribesa process ratherthan a
'thing'.(We mightcomparehere the arrayof statementson p. 34 concerning
'the symbolic', which is describedboth as a 'thing' and as an 'activity'.)
Nattiez, however,seems to adopt a more recentview of the signifier(derived
fromHjelmslev)in whichit becomes 'a purelyphysicalthing' (p. 4), as in the
sonic or writtenpresenceof the word 'music'.Of course,if it is only a physical
thing then one has to ask where exactly it could possibly combine with a
mental concept (the signified)to form the sign and, moreover,how the sign
could then reach out in a 'dynamic'way (p. 8) to changeits signification,a
notioncentralto Nattiez'sthesis.
The second difficultycomes when we try to imaginewhere the thing to
whichthe sign refersactuallyexists. Obviously,with a notion such as 'music',
the signifier (the impression of the word 'music') combines with some
concepts (signifieds)which construewhat is 'out there' in a particularway
dependingon the individualor culture. There may be acoustic events out
there (or, at least, vibrationsin the air)but they cannotbe inherently'music',
nor play the same role in everyone'sconceptionof music. In otherwords,the
thing to which the sign refersmust also be a mentalnotion, particularised by
the mind that perceivesit. This does not emerge quite clearlyin Nattiez's
summary of the basics of semiotics, partly because he underpins his
explanationof the sign with a quotationfrom anotherpassagefrom Saussure
(p. 4) in whichSaussure(or perhapsthose who collatedhis ideas fromlecture
notes) must be making a mistake. Saussureis talking of the French and
Germanwordsfor the conceptof 'ox' and says:'the signified"ox"has for its
signifier"b-o-f"on one side of the borderand "o-k-s"on the other'.But since
the French and the Germansdoubtless each have a ratherdifferentset of
associationsfor this animal, their signifiers('boeuf', 'Ochse') must refer to
differentmentalconcepts,to differentsignifieds,not the same one differently
expressedon eitherside of the border- and certainlyneitherof the signifieds
is to be foundstandingin a field!8
What is found standingin a field is a livingorganismwhichwe are pleased
to classify,mentallyand culturally,as an 'ox', but which does not in and of
itself possess 'oxness'.The sign for an ox in any languagerefersto a mental
construalof the thingout there,not the thingitself.I labourthis point because
thereis much talkin Nattiez'sbook of signsreferringto 'objects',and it is not
alwaysclear from his diagramsand explanationswhetherthese objects are
supposedto be 'out there'or in ourheads.This ambiguitytends to obscureon

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108 ANTHONY PRYER

occasionsthe explanation-model he is offering.


In fact, Nattieztakesverylittle from Saussure'saccountof the sign and its
operations.Saussurenot only saw the relationshipbetween the signifierand
the signifiedas arbitrary,but also as stable.This, of course,is the very point
that Nattiez feels he needs to refute in order to show that there can be an
explanatorycontinuumthat will fit the diversityand ever-changingnatureof
ourmusicalworld.He wantsto showthat signifiers(and,throughthem, signs)
can changetheirconnotationsthroughtime and space.To do this he drawson
the writingsof anotherfounder of semiotics, C. S. Peirce (1931-5) from
whomhe quotesthe following:
A Signis anything which is related to a second thing, its objectin respect to
a quality, in such a way as to bring a third thing, its interpretant,
in relation
to the same object, and that in such a way as to bring a fourth into relation
to that same object in the same form, ad infinitum. (p. 6)
This somewhatobscuredescriptionis then followedimmediatelyby a diagram
whichrepresentsan interpretation
of Peirce'sideasby the Frenchphilosopher
Gilles-GastonGranger(Fig. 1):

Fig. 1 The 'dynamic'sign,model1 (Granger/Nattiez)

(S)(D(S *- (D *-

1 / /

Nattiezthen commentsthat 'Peirce's"sign"is clearlyanalogousto Saussure's


"signifier"',and that 'Peirce'sfirstand greatestoriginalidea is his notionthat
the thing to which the sign refers- that is, the interpretant- is also a sign
because... the processeffectedby the signis infinite'(p. 7).
On the face of it, this does not seem to be quite right. If Peirce'ssign is
equivalentto Saussure'ssignifierthen, at least as Saussureunderstoodit, it
must be a mentalevent. In which case the interpretantit connectswith must
be the set of notions that Saussurecalls the signified,and the two together
produce a sign, not an object. Moreover,if the same signifiercomes into
contactwith anotherset of notions (anotherinterpretant,in the diagram)then
they will producein combinationa differentsign which refers,in turn, to a
differentlyperceivedobject- that is, to a new object, not the same one
(rememberthe two notions of 'ox' discussedabove). In other words, in this

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NATTIEZ'S Mussc AND DISCOURSE 109

diagram the 'object' seems worryingly concrete and singular considering the
range of interpretants acting upon it, presumably at different times. Also, so
far as one can tell from Peirce's statement, the sign does not 'refer' to the
interpretant, it brings the interpretant into relation with the object; in fact,
there is a sense in which the arrows in Fig. 1 between the sign and the
interpretants seem to be going the wrong way. Moreover, Peirce seems to be
suggesting that the interpretants are brought into relation with the object via
the sign, not directly and independently.

IV
All in all, this diagram, which stands as the seminal iconic representation of
Nattiez's view of the way in which the 'dynamic' sign works, presents us with a
number of problems which can hardly help us to follow Nattiez's explanation-
model in any detail. In order to get further with the argument, therefore, I
present an alternativeview of the operation of the 'dynamic' sign, one which I
hope will show more clearly the explanation problems that Nattiez has to face
(Fig. 2). For the sake of argument, I have taken the example of how the sign
for 'music' might imply different things for different observers.
The first aspect of the new diagram which differs from Nattiez's plan is that
the raw data (what we might call 'instigating object') is separated from the
object as eventually perceived, shown as connotations 1, 2 and 3. Of course
these perceptual objects are each different. In the diagram, the adjacent
connotations overlap only a little (and connotations 1 and 3 not at all), but in
any given society or culture there would presumably be a fairly large overlap
between all connotations, though this is difficult to represent diagrammatically
at this level of detail.
Secondly, the signifier, the signifieds and the sign have been preserved as
events that take place in our minds. The physical, spoken words tparoles) are
not the signifiers as such: the signifiers are what we each, individually, sense
about such utterances. This means that someone else could speak the words
'This is music', but not until they are received by our own brain do they
become signifiersfor us, and it is at that point that we put them together with
our notions, our signifieds, and produce our own sign for the term 'music'. Of
course, since we live in collective cultures, our signifiers and signifieds will
probablyhave much in common with those of others in our community.
Finally, although there is probably going to be a good deal of common
material between connotations 1, 2 and 3, this agreement cannot be
guaranteed by the system as such. Nattiez quite rightly insists that 'Semiology
is not the science of communication' (p. 15). It is not entirely clear in the
book, but presumably we are to understand 'communication' to mean
something along the lines of: a non-accidental correlation between the

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\\| 'This is | l

ANTHONY PRYER
110

Fig. 2 The 'dynamic'sign, model 2

r----------------------___________n

DATA
' Vibrationsin the air/
< relatedartefacts/
, relatedbehavioursand events/
(Sense / | relatedstates of mind
\ data)
L_ / ___________________________J

Person

(Sense
data)
/ / (Sense
[Parole 11 [Languel / data)

| music' | Person 2 <


/
\ Signifieds2 - a set of \
/
\, / concepts about the object. \
*/ PLUS \
Signifier2 - psychological 8
imprintof spoken words from \
person 1 t
\ = | sign 2 | for 'Music' / l
\ andresults in: / \
___________ \ ,, / [Parole 21 l
Music ' ,,' | 'This is | [\anguel ;
,,,,#
(conno)tationL Imusic'l/E \
r- l 5 \+ / Person 3 \
- -- - n .
Muslc ', / concepts aboutthe object.\ \
/ Signifieds3 - a set of
(connotation , PLUS
) r--L--------------n Signifier2 - psychological
L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ J ,
imprintofspokenwords from
Music ; W person 3
(connotation ' \ = | sign 3 | for 'Music'/
9 - - and resultsin: /
L----_--_---_---__ \ / lParole 31
etc \^
s 'This is
music'
etc

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NATTIEZ'S Mussc AND DISCOURSE lll

intended message and the received message, such that the non-accidental
correlation is facilitated by the transmission system. Since, however, our own
notions (signifieds) subtly colour the incoming information, exact correlation
is unlikely even in a perfectly efficient system. Of course, communication can
happen, and this is presumably what makes Nattiez say towards the end of the
book that 'semiology is not necessarilythe science of communication' (p. 237,
my italics); this seems to mean that the things which semiology examines can
sometimes produce communications, rather than that semiology should treat
these things as if communication is their business.
Having presented the scheme in Fig. 2 we can now get down to examining
its implications. Although I have taken the example of how the sign for 'music'
might be produced, concepts of a slightly less general nature could equally be
implanted into the diagram, for example, 'Beethoven's "Pastoral"Symphony'
or 'The "Tristan" Chord'. The first thing that we want to know is: what
exactly is the relationship between the perceived objects (the things in the
connotation boxes) and the raw data (the 'instigating objects', as I called them
earlier)?There are really two parts to this question. The first is: where is the
real object? This is a question about the ontology, the mode of existence, of a
thing. For example: 'Where is the real "Beethoven's Sixth Symphony"?'.The
second part of the question is: what makes us decide that the raw data can be
collected into a single, identifiable thing here? This is a question about how we
make definitions. For example: 'How do we decide what is music?'.
It is rather diff1cult to get a clear idea of Nattiez's answer to the first
question about the mode of existence of a musical work, particularly as he
describes his construction of the tripartitionas being 'based on an ontological
prejudice' (p. 174). Certainly he seems not to agree with Ingarden, for whom
'the work is ... immutable and permanent' (p. 69), and who 'all but ignores
the music of the oral tradition' (p. 71). In fact, while Ingarden did believe the
work to be immutable, he did not assert that it was therefore permanent,
because he recognised that some artworks (for example, Leonardo's Leda and
the Szvan) have been destroyed forever, and so the opportunity for readings
('concretizations') of them is now gone: 'the work of art constitutes an
aesthetic object only when it is expressed in a concretization' (Ingarden 1973:
372). Ironically enough, Ingarden's separation of the material work from the
various and multiple aesthetic objects we might imagine in its presence has not
a little in common with Nattiez's notion of the 'dynamic' sign, in spite of the
latter's resistance to his ideas.
In his chapter on 'The Concept of the Musical Work', Nattiez does give a
direct example of his position in relation to the case of Beethoven's Sixth
Symphony. He says that 'When we recognize "PastoralSymphony", we do not
make a connection to the thing in itself, but to a certain number of relevant
constants that recur from one performance to another' (p. 86). But there are

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112 ANTHONY PRYER

two difficulties with this statement. Firstly the 'constants that recur' are
presumably the things that tell us that something is repeated, and that the
repeated thing is something we have labelled 'Beethoven's Sixth Symphony'
rather than another work. They do not tell us what kind of a thing it is; in
other words, they are what philosophers would call markers of its
individuation, not explanations of its mode of existence. Secondly, the
reference to 'relevant constants' simply begs the question: relevant to what? To
a shadowy notion of 'the thing in itself' to which we are supposed not to be
making a connection? In fact, Nattiez's statement simply leads us on to the
question of who or what is doing the defining, that is, towards his position on
the problem of definition ratherthan that of ontology.
Of course, half the problem of trying to define a work, or even music itself,
is not the classification of common material but rather the formal problem of
how to make a definition. This problem is never addressed directly by Nattiez
although most of the common approaches are tried. When defining narrative
behaviour in music, for example, Nattiez insists on 'two necessary and
suff1cientconditions' (p. 128) before the activity can be deemed to be taking
place. When an attempt is made to define Stockhausen's Klavierstuck XI, on
the other hand, it is 'intention' that holds sway (p. 86). Again, when the
listener has to decide whether two performances are of the same work they are
urged to seek some 'family resemblance' (p. 85) between the two events. This
term comes from Wittgenstein,9and the force of it is to urge us not to worry if
phenomena at different ends of a spectrum seem unconnected because, by a
process of 'creeping resemblance' between adjacent members, both ends can
be seen to be connected after all - that is, they do form a family- and so we
can use this as a model for definition-making.As a metaphor, however, this is
misleading, because the only reason why one might wonder at the disparate
physical attributes of an extended family is because one already knows that
they are a family, that they are genetically connected. The 'familiness' is not
guaranteed by the 'resemblance' but rather by the underlying genetic
connection which has already been proved. There are lessons in this for a
system that tries to establish communalities by invoking an infinite chain of
referencesbetween signs.
Two further features of Fig. 2 now need to be addressed. Firstly, is each of
the signs (with its different connotations) equally valid whatever it refers to?
Nattiez comes up against this problem when he imagines John Cage saying
'chess match, I baptize you concerto' (p. 53), but it is also present when we
think of the variety of things that have been considered part of music at
differenttimes and in different societies. Behind this problem is the possibility
that 'what music is' can simply be arbitrarilydecided by any group or any
society. This 'institutional aspect' (p. 43) of music is problematic in relation to
its artistic import, and an attempt has been made to address this problem via

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the so-called 'institutional' theory of art (see Dickie 1974). This theory, in one
form or another, infiltrates some of the arguments in Nattiez's book as well as
much anthropologicalthinking on the subject.
Actually, there is probably not a problem if a particular group wants to
decide that a particular activity will be called 'music'; they will simply have a
set of experiences that relate to that activity in a particular way. Eating
bananas may be 'music' to some societies, but I doubt that their experience of
that will be like our experience of the BrandenburgConcertos, though it might
still be 'artistic'.The real problem comes when a single, particularsociety (say,
Western Europe in 1990) wants to say not that something unusual should now
be the general thing that we think of as 'music', but that anythingcan come
into the fold of music. At this point the institutional theory of art ceases to tell
us anything. To the question 'can anything be artistic?' there are only two
possible answers. If the answer is 'yes' then we cannot be dealing with an
institutional theory of art, because any artefact or attitude can qualify and so
we will never learn what might be distinctive about 'art' as such. If the answer
is 'no' then there are limits on what the community alone can decide and so
we do not, in the end, have an institutionalexplanation of art.l In general the
book does not pick up on the distinction between those societies which might
want something different from us to be music, and those who might want
anything and everyiing to be music. All relativismsare not the same.
For those that want anythingto be music, then, the specificity of music, the
specificity of artistic experience, the careful and particular use of concepts
(which is the only way we have of stopping all sensations from being the same
one) - all of these are not only lost, they become meaningless. That is why, in
Fig. 2, there already has to be some cultural selection in the raw data box
itself, that is to say, some limitation on the things we are even willing to
consider as being potentially music. (Usually they involve vibrations in the air,
which are perceived as sound.) Nattiez does have a theory of the specificity of
music which he defines as being located in the unstable relationship between
intrinsic and extrinsic referencing that it displays (pp. 116, 118). However, on
the face of it, it is hard to see how this distinguishes music as such from, say,
abstract art, certain types of poetry or architecture, and so on. And it is harder
still to see how such a definition captures the artistic import of music, by
which I mean not so much its meaningful remarksas its remarkablemeanings.
Like many anthropologists before him, Nattiez betrays a subtle bias towards
the necessary conditions of art in a culture, at the expense of the sufficient
conditions: he wants to suggest what conditions are necessary to produce
music, but not what conditions are sufficient to mark out that product as being
exclusively music and nothing else.
The final feature of Fig. 2 that needs to be assessed is: what meaning should
we attach to the overlapping of the connotation boxes? It is in the chains of

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114 ANTHONY PRYER

these connotations (p. 120), these symbolic webs (Chapter 5), that Nattiez
locates the meaningful clumps of variables in society, the so-called symbolic
forms (a musical work, a coherent activity such as music analysis, and so on).
But does the mere fact of their overlappingcausecultures (or metalanguages),
or are they forced to overlap by cultures (or metalanguages)?What is limiting
these connotations so that they overlap?Nattiez's answer to this seems to be
that these connotations are not arbitrary, they are not just people saying
anything they want. Rather, these connotations are controlled by a
background agenda or metalanguage - what Nattiez calls a 'plot' (p. 176) -
which takes a given phenomenon and proceeds to 'integrateit within a seriesof
comparable phenomena' and thus assigns 'some plausible meaning' to it
(p. 230). A first objection to this might be that there does seem to be some
kind of circularityhere: how are we to know what phenomena are genuinely
'comparable' unless we have already decided on our criteria for meaning?
Secondly, of course, such a manoeuvre is somewhat removed from traditional
accounts of meaning within the Anglo-Austrian analytic philosophical
tradition, which would normally attempt to tease out the truth conditions of a
statement before it was considered meaningful. Thirdly, one might well seek
an explanation of why 'meaning' and 'contextual significance' could be
conflated in quite this way, although it is easy to see why something's
contextual significance could produce a kind of 'meaningfialness'(which is a
slightly different thing). Even within Nattiez's own terms, however, it is
sometimes quite difficult to see exactly where his explanation leads. If, for
example, a particular 'plot' is the background culture itself, then meaning
derives from culture. But what is culture? Culture, we are told, 'is nothing
other than a style' (p. 195). So meaning is a style accessory? However, style
cannot exist on its own, it must be a style 'of' something, and it is presumably
that further thing which needs to be tested for its equivalence to meaning,
even in Nattiez's own terllls.
That Nattiez should have brought to our attention so many fundamental
issues within the context of a single thesis is a considerable achievement.
There is no doubt that Musicand Discourseis an important and immensely
stimulating book. It draws music analysts into a general anthropology of the
society in which they work, it gives them a new methodology of examination,
and it tackles the big questions that most excuse themselves from attending to.
That it should be accused of some prevarication on the finer points of
epistemology and ontology is not the main point: the alliances of eighteenth-
century Europe die hard, after all. It is most valuable, it seems to me, as
perhaps the first cultural theory of music analysis to have been written. With
that thought, I shall leave the last word to the anthropologist Clifford Geertz:
This is the first condition for cultural theory: it is not its own master ... its
freedom to shape itself in terms of its internal logic is rather limited. What

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115

generality it contrives to achieve grows out of the delicacy of its


distinctions, not the sweep of its abstractions (Geertz 1973, pp. 24-5).

NOTES
1. Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse:Towarda Semiologyof Music, trans.
Carolyn Abbate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). xv+272pp. $45.00
(hardback)and $ 14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-691-09136-6
2. See, for example, the article: 'Fact/value'in Dancy and Sosa (1992, pp. 137-8).
3. Another common distinction is, of course, that between facts and data. There is a
lucid discussion of this from the musician's point of view in Dahlhaus (1983),
Chapter 3. Nattiez occasionally uses the term 'data' towards the end of his book:
on pp. 222 and 229, for example.
4. See, for example, Adorno (1989).
5. For a lengthy discussion of the implications of this notion for art theory see
Gombrich (1979).
6. Compare also Jacques Derrida's use of the notion of a 'trace' as discussed in
Johnson (1993).
7. Interestingly enough, some commentators on Mauss have seen him as concerned
with social 'phenomena' rather than 'facts'. See, for example, Kuper and Kuper
(1985, pp. 504-5).
8. For a discussion of this passage see Sturrock (1986, pp. 15-16).
9. See the discussion in Baker and Hacker (1983, pp. 185-208).
10. See the interesting discussion of the 'institutional' theory of art in Wollheim
(1980, pp. 157-66). Wollheim states that 'the theory may be traced to a sug-
gestion made by the great anthropologistMarcel Mauss' (p. 269).

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Dickie, G., 1974: Art and the Aesthetic:An InstitutionalAnalysis (Ithaca: Cornell
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