Multistability and Complex Isotopy in Makam Music Analysis: The Link Between Cognition and Semiotics in Aesthetics of Turkish Music

Peter Salvucci

doi:10.18290/rh247212.13

Published : 2024-12-27

Vol. 72 No. 12 (2024)

Multistability and Complex Isotopy in Makam Music Analysis: The Link Between Cognition and Semiotics in Aesthetics of Turkish Music

Peter Salvucci

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5878-5209

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh247212.13

Abstract

Multistability in perceptual psychology involves ambiguity or rivalry between two or more percepts of sensory stimuli. This phenomenon can be compared to the Greimassian concept of complex isotopy, where multiple terms of semantic content are simultaneously signified in the same reading of a text, providing multiple interpretational meanings. This study proposes that a key aesthetic principle of classical Turkish makam music involves the multistable perception of musical events, which in the semantic sense manifest as interoceptive, complex isotopies. The aesthetic of multiple subjective interpretations is examined in related traditional arts such as miniature art, poetry and theater. Generative theory is employed for compositional analysis in this study, as it reflects the cognitive apprehension of music. The principles of multistable perception as complex isotopy therefore provide a cognitive and aesthetic context to the author’s thesis proposal for a generative theory of makam music.

Keywords:

multistability, complex isotopy, generative theory, Turkish music, Ottoman music, makam, music and cognition, musical semiotics

Details

References

Statistics

Authors

Download files

pdf

Altmetric indicators

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Abou Mrad, Nidaa, Jean-Marc Chouvel, Frédéric Billiet, Carmen Saadé, Nathalie Abou Jaoude, and Hayaf Yassine. “Discrimination cognitive des modalités sémantiques des monodies modales.” Revue des traditions musicales, no. 16 (2022): 67-92.

And, Metin. “Tiyatroda ‘Açık Biçim’ ve Türk Tiyatrosu Bakımından Önemi.” Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi 1, no. 1 (1970): 19-31.

Bayraktarkatal, M. Ertuğrul, and Okan M. Öztürk. “Ezgisel Kodların Belirlediği Bir Sistem Olarak Makam Kavramı: Hüseyni Makamı’nın İncelenmesi.” Porte Akademik 3, no. 4 (2012): 24-59.

Bayraktarkatal, Ertuğrul, and Cenk Güray. “Proposing a Makâm Model Based on Melodic Nuclei: Examples from the Hüseyni and Uşşâk Families: Hüseynî, Gülizâr, Muhayyer, Uşşâk, Bayâti, Nevâ and Gerdâniye.” Analytical Approaches to World Music 11, no. 1 (2023): 1-45.

Baysal, Ozan. Phrase Rhythm and Time in Beste-i Kadims: A Cyclical Approach. PhD diss., Istanbul Technical University, 2011. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/TezGoster?key=EEdeQgIdFRxX5NbvVau-At0w5ww_K75fuKI45r1X7FYiYHaPTYn1-22uwOb_O8jG.

Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. 2nd edition. Berlin–New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002.

“Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China.” Lecture by David Hockney, September 27, 2017. YouTube video, 55:09.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZmKMEdetY.

Fırat, Begüm Ö. Encounters with the Ottoman Miniature: Contemporary Readings of an Imperial Art. London: I.B. Tauris, 2015.

Greimas, Algirdas J. Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method. Translated by Daniele McDowell, Ronald Schleifer, and Alan Velie. Lincoln–London: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.

Greimas, Algirdas J., Joseph Courtés, and Michael Rengstorf. “The Cognitive Dimension of Narrative Discourse.” New Literary History 20, no. 3 (1989): 563-579. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://doi.org/10.2307/469354.

Hockney, David. “A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China: excerpts.” January 17, 2022. YouTube video, 4:58. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwJiBY2UsRg.

Itri, Buhurizade Mustafa. Rast Ağır Semai: “Ne Bülbül-sûz Ne Giriftar-ı Reng û Bû Oluruz.” Music notated by Cüneyt Kosal. Accessed April 10, 2024. http://www.sanatmuziginotalari.com/nota_inderme.asp?notaid=58118&mode=1&sessionid=612002036.

Kola, Fatma. “Aşka Dair Bazı Tasavvurlar (XVI. Yüzyıl Divanlarındaki Aşk Redifli Gazellerden Hareketle).” Littera Turca: Journal of Turkish Language and Literature 2, no. 2 (2016): 67-94.

Kramer, Jonathan D. The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies. New York: Schirmer Books, 1988.

Lerdahl, Fred, and Ray Jackendoff. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983.

Öztürk, Okan M. Makam Müziğinde Ezgi ve Makam İlişkisinin Analizi ve Yorumlanması Açısından Yeni bir Yaklaşım: Perde Düzenleri ve Makamsal Ezgi Çekirdekleri. PhD diss., Istanbul Technical University, 2014. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/TezGoster?key=sY7m19PfcL6F1NUw-cr80PsawSAunY-n96UBGEQ26zS6mhHXvepRJ0GUwm6NfI7E.

Peirce, Charles S. The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, vol. 2 (1983-1913). Edited by Peirce Edition Project. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Schwartz, Jean-Luc, Nicolas Grimault, Jean-Michel Hupé, Brian C.J. Moore, and Daniel Pressnitzer. “Multistability in Perception: Binding Sensory Modalities, an Overview.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 367, no. 1591 (2012): 896-905. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0254.

Szalárdy, Orsolya, István Winkler, Erich Schröger, Andreas Widmann, and Alexandra Bendixen. “Foreground-Background Discrimination Indicated by Event-Related Brain Potentials in a New Auditory Multistability Paradigm.” Psychophysiology 50, no. 12 (2013): 1239-1250.

Tarasti, Eero. A Theory of Musical Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Warren, Richard M., and Richard L. Gregory. “An Auditory Analogue of the Visual Reversible Figure.” The American Journal of Psychology 71, no. 3 (1958): 612-613. Accessed July 9, 2024. https://doi.org/10.2307/1420267.