ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the role of Peircean categories in understanding music signification, arguing that Peircean thought should lead us to place special emphasis upon a mind-independent reality. It argues that a full understanding of music signification recognizes a causal underpinning for musical events and behaviors but, nevertheless, grants a vital disconnect between the space of musical meanings and the causal nexus that is the ultimate reality of the world. Music signification, then, from a Peircean perspective, must ultimately derive from reality even when the signs we use in our thinking may seem fanciful or wholly mental. A useful example of how Peircean sign types can be deployed in elucidating musical meaning is found in the second chapter of Raymond Monelle’s The Sense of Music. In listening to the musical item, the arrow is reversed, such that the music can be said to signify “seriousness” with reference to dancing.
