More on Semantics

Another contribution in Music Culture and Society is a speech given by Leonard Bernstein at Harvard University [see page 38 of this text or originally published as: The Unanswered Questions: Six Talks at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), 125-31, 133, 135].

Bernstein states that music can be thought of as one 'super game of sonic anagrams'. The twelve 'letters' can be arranged in different combinations with a rich array of possibilities derived from hortizontal and vertical structures - melody, harmony and countrapuntal anagrams, and the added variety of features such as pitch, dynamics, duration etc.

However he then questions whether music is a game at all - for Bernstein music is more than mere pleasure: 'music does more...says more, means more...' He suggests that apart from feelings or moods and beyond representations of pictures and stories, music has 'instrinsic meaning'. Whilst acknowledging the lack of agreement on how music achieves this, he contends nonetheless that there is a general consensus that 'meaning, nay, expression' takes places via music. He sees meaning and expression as being separate - meaning allows listeners to repeat and communicate a derived notion where expression is more a sensation such as passion, glory, or mystery.

I see both expression and meaning in music, however it is questionable that the law in it present state is sophisticated enough to consider both. To some the distinction may be dismissed as trivial, but to many, including myself, it can be seen as a juncture of sorts - the place where values intersect and collide.

Copyright law categorically protects the expression of music once reduced to a material form. Typically it has been more the domain of the law relating to free speech that has centred on the freedom to communicate meaning. Where music is limited by the law, technology and the market (Lessig); so too, is meaning. It is marginalised and silenced (to a large degree but perhaps not absolutely) by the priority of other objectives (profit). The challenge for us is to find the ways that allow both, rather than one at the expense of the other. From a simplistic perspective: the present maximalist copyright laws could be said to favour expression but afford little attention to meaning; open file sharing networks provide a space for meaning but arguably lack the financial structure to sustain a professional sector; but a blanket licensing scheme could allow for both to be achieved at the same time and to a greater level.