Towards a social semiotics of rhythm in popular music
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David Machin
David Machin (b. 1966) is a senior lecturer at Örebro University 〈portvale100@gmail.com 〉. His research interests include social semiotics and multimodality. His publications includeGlobal media discourse (with T. van Leeuwen, 2007);Analyzing popular music (2010);Language of crime and deviance (with A. Mayr, 2012); andCritical discourse analysis: A multimodal approach (with A. Mayr, 2012).
Abstract
There have been attempts to describe rhythm in technical and musicological terms, yet it has remained one of the most elusive aspects of music for theorists as it is comprised of a range of interacting sounds. This article explores the contribution that could be made by a social semiotic approach to rhythm in popular music. The paper provides an inventory of sound qualities that can be seen as a set of meaning potentials for the creation of certain kinds of “groove” or “movement” in music, since these have different kinds of associations in terms of ideas, moods, and attitudes.
About the author
David Machin (b. 1966) is a senior lecturer at Örebro University 〈portvale100@gmail.com〉. His research interests include social semiotics and multimodality. His publications include Global media discourse (with T. van Leeuwen, 2007); Analyzing popular music (2010); Language of crime and deviance (with A. Mayr, 2012); and Critical discourse analysis: A multimodal approach (with A. Mayr, 2012).
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Between the grid and composition: Layout in PowerPoint's design and use
- Beyond speech balloons and thought bubbles: The integration of text and image
- Abstraction as a limit to semiosis
- The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating cognitive and semiotic approaches
- Hearing a shakkei: The semiotics of the audible in a Japanese stroll garden
- Towards a social semiotics of rhythm in popular music
- A carnival pilgrimage: Cultural semiotics in China
- Photography and intermediality: Analytical perspectives on notions referred to by the term “photography”
- An exploration of possible unconscious ethnic biases in higher education: The role of implicit attitudes on selection for university posts
- New insights into the medium hand: Discovering recurrent structures in gestures
- The multimodal construal of the experiential domain of recipes in Japanese and Chinese
- Cyberterrorist messages: A semiotic perspective
- A necessary condition for proof of abiotic semiosis
- Review of From First to Third Via Cybersemiotics
