Semiotic approaches to “traditional music”, musical/poetic structures, and ethnographic research

Abstract

Abstract This text is a first attempt of approaching traditional music, musical/poetic structures and ethnographic research semiotically. The basic elements of traditional music (motives, rhythms, phonetics, performance speeds, modal systems, musical instruments, repertoire), the musical/poetic structures with morphological types and formulas (musical and poetic), musical and non-musical codes (verbal and nonverbal) during a musical performance (nods, movements, etc.) as well as the ethnographic research itself with its own “performances” (discussions with musicians, recordings, transcriptions, analyses) constitute groups of “signs” and codes that, combined together, create complex frames of meanings and re-definitions not only among musicians and revelers but also among ethnographers and their interlocutors and among ethnographic “texts” and their representations after multiple readings. This text presents elements that emerged after an enduring field research in Crete (1998–2008). The use of semiotics in the study of traditional music and musical analysis can constitute a useful analysis tool for ethnographic research from planning to composing ethnographic “texts” (texts, transcriptions, analyses). This text highlights the necessity of initiating a dialogue concerning the aspects and perspectives of a semiotic approach to musicology and music ethnography.