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Chapter 3. Music, metaphor, and creativity

  • Lawrence M. Zbikowski
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Performing Metaphoric Creativity across Modes and Contexts
This chapter is in the book Performing Metaphoric Creativity across Modes and Contexts

Abstract

This chapter explores the resources for meaning construction provided by music and how musical communication exemplifies creativity. Using two short passages from Haydn’s The Creation as examples, the chapter investigates how musical sounds are correlated with nonmusical phenomena through analogy, a cognitive process related to but distinct from metaphor. The relationship between analogy and metaphor is considered in some detail and connected to explanations of musical meaning construction that draw on semiotics and conceptual metaphor theory. This explanatory framework is extended to musical metonymy, illustrated by an example from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. The chapter proposes that nonlinguistic forms of communication like music provide important insights into analogy, metaphor, and metonymy, and thus into the study of human creativity.

Abstract

This chapter explores the resources for meaning construction provided by music and how musical communication exemplifies creativity. Using two short passages from Haydn’s The Creation as examples, the chapter investigates how musical sounds are correlated with nonmusical phenomena through analogy, a cognitive process related to but distinct from metaphor. The relationship between analogy and metaphor is considered in some detail and connected to explanations of musical meaning construction that draw on semiotics and conceptual metaphor theory. This explanatory framework is extended to musical metonymy, illustrated by an example from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. The chapter proposes that nonlinguistic forms of communication like music provide important insights into analogy, metaphor, and metonymy, and thus into the study of human creativity.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface ix
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 2. Metaphor in multimodal creativity 19
  6. Chapter 3. Music, metaphor, and creativity 43
  7. Chapter 4. Singing for peace 71
  8. Chapter 5. Metaphor emergence in cinematic discourse 97
  9. Chapter 6. What makes an advert go viral? 119
  10. Chapter 7. Metaphorical creativity in political cartoons 153
  11. Chapter 8. Disentangling metaphoric communication 175
  12. Chapter 9. Sensory landscapes 197
  13. Chapter 10. Creative journeys 221
  14. Chapter 11. Multimodal creativity in figurative use 249
  15. Chapter 12. “Born from the heart” 281
  16. Chapter 13. Figuring it out 311
  17. Index 343
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.7.03zbi

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface ix
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 2. Metaphor in multimodal creativity 19
  6. Chapter 3. Music, metaphor, and creativity 43
  7. Chapter 4. Singing for peace 71
  8. Chapter 5. Metaphor emergence in cinematic discourse 97
  9. Chapter 6. What makes an advert go viral? 119
  10. Chapter 7. Metaphorical creativity in political cartoons 153
  11. Chapter 8. Disentangling metaphoric communication 175
  12. Chapter 9. Sensory landscapes 197
  13. Chapter 10. Creative journeys 221
  14. Chapter 11. Multimodal creativity in figurative use 249
  15. Chapter 12. “Born from the heart” 281
  16. Chapter 13. Figuring it out 311
  17. Index 343
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