Concerning the Question of Anthropomorphic Metaphors in Music (Semiotic Aspect)

Abstract

In this article, the author continues to develop the problem of anthropomorphism in musical thinking, considered through the prism of the opposition of male/female, which serves as the “universal classifier” of mythological modeling (according to Tatiana Tsivyan). Of the rather large number of examples of the male/female anthropomorphic metaphor preserved in the mythopoetics of the peoples of the world, a selection is presented of those that are manifested at different levels of musical thinking. The prevalence of this anthropomorphic metaphor may indicate its deep psychobiological roots and archetypal nature, which ensures its high musical and aesthetic potential, preservation, development and relevance. The widespread modal archetype of the “trichord in a fourth,” represented as a conjugation of greater and lesser spaces (“modal acoustic fields,” for example, D–F and F–G) in the volume of a fourth (D–G) is considered from the point of view of the anthropomorphic metaphor male/female and semantically related fields such as heaven/earth, father/mother. The prevalence of this modal archetype is explained by its correspondence to the “golden proportion,” where the greater is related to the lesser as the whole is to the greater (3/2 = 5/3, in semitones). The most favourable conditions for the manifestation of the continuous properties of the “trichord in a fourth” modal archetype and typologically similar binary-asymmetric structures as the root basis of musical language are noted.

Keywords: semiology of music, anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic metaphor male/female in music, “trichord in fourth” modal archetype as an anthropomorphic metaphor, birthing ritual songs, musical language