ABSTRACT
Music, like film, is a kind of language, which possesses a form of grammar, but without words, those units of signification with stable, well-defined meanings of the type that can be listed in a dictionary. It is expressive because, as Lévi-Strauss has put it, it operates across two grids, one physiological and natural, the other cultural: for on the one hand music exploits the natural rhythms of the body, on the other hand it does so in terms of scales and harmonies which vary through history and between cultures (Lévi-Strauss, 1975). The result is that musical time is not a dimension to be measured by the clock. Duration in music is measurable only in terms of sensibilities, tensions and emotions.
