Musical language and writing: about the relevance of a non-verbal semiotics

Abstract

In this article based on the Saussure’s concepts and the ones from French and musical semiotics studies, we will present reflections on the status of musical discourse as a language. Understood as a system of signs arranged in opposition or relationship, language takes place in multiple supports, verbal or non-verbal, shared in its production and reception by linguistic communities, also called speakers of a given language. From this approach, we will manage to present music as a language that takes place in multiple forms: tonal, atonal, modal, based on tempered, mesotonic or other systems that generate styles and genres constituted by the communication of those who share them as signifying systems and make performance their speech act.