Deixis in Musical Narrative: Musical Sense-making between Discrete Particulars and Synoptic Overview

In: Chinese Semiotic Studies, Band 11, Heft 1, S. 79-90

Abstract

Abstract
This paper conceives of music as discourse. It elaborates on the deictic concept of pointing as a heuristic guide for sense-making and stresses the role of focal attention as a means for singling out those elements that are denoted as being meaningful. Three aspects are discussed: the delimitation of the elements (which elements?), the mutual relations of these elements (the structure of the music) and the mental operations of the listener (narrative comprehension). To the extent that all these aspects can be organized in a kind of overall mental apprehension, it is possible to explore the possibilities of cognitive maps as organizational tools for musical sense-making, both as the result of sensory experience and cognitive processing by the listener.