Music as Meaning

Abstract or Introduction

My dictionary defines meaning as “what somebody wants to express” and “what something signifies”. As a teacher I used to ask my composition students why they wanted to write music, to which question the most frequently occurring answer, and one that I suspected they had usually not fully thought-out, was “To express myself.” But how do composers express themselves in music, and is self-expression, or for that matter, any clear-cut expression really possible, or just an illusion. Can music, of itself, really express or signify anything, and if so, how?

Because it seems that of all the arts it is music that is the least amenable to attempts at explaining its meaning. With literature and the representative visual arts meaning is usually obvious and intended by the author or artist. However, music does share its reticence as to meaning with abstract art and with some experimental literature. Or it could be said that the latter two art forms have taken on the imprecision of meaning possessed by music.