Abstraction and Prototypes: Music Semiotics

Author: Huang Hanhua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: This innovative academic work, spanning over 200,000 words, thoroughly and deeply explores and elucidates the aesthetic essence and connotation of "musical symbols," moving from "prototype to abstraction" and back from "abstraction to prototype." The entire text is logically rigorous and well-organized, with the author striving to construct a rigorous and orderly theoretical framework. The introduction provides a detailed review and critique of long-standing debates in the musicological field, followed by the fundamental questions addressed in this book.
Chapter 1, , directly addresses the relationship between the "abstraction and prototype of musical symbols," offering comprehensive discussions on several aspects, including the abstraction and transference of artistic symbols, the abstraction of musical symbols and their connection to life and emotional forms, the relationship between the abstraction of musical symbols and inner life states and external realities, as well as the mutual permeation and illumination between musical symbols and other cultural symbols. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a detailed and meticulous examination of the process by which human inner life states are externalized through vocal expressions, body language, and abstracted into musical symbols, moving from the internal to the external. Chapter 4 explores how natural and social sound and dynamic prototypes enter musical sound symbols through the mediation of human inner life states.