Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History

Rating:
Summary: meaning is subjective BUT
Review: Kramer essentially argues that the meaning of music is subjective and that we attribute meaning to music. But he argues against the idea that music can mean whatever people want it to mean and uses literary history and film soundtracks to prove that subjective meaning is music is corporate as well as individual. His best example is the legendary violin shrieks in Psycho. Without Janet Leigh's scream those violin shrieks could mean something else. The violin shrieks don't acquire meaning by themselves but through historic association with the film. This case study alone provides the example of his best work and the case of the whole book.

Much of the book is mired in too much political theory for my taste and Kramer fumbles with most jazz. He never even addresses rock music despite making the case that avant garde music left normal listeners no option but to look to rock and jazz for tunes. For an argument that pointed he should have at least explained why he didn't examine pop music.

You may want to check out Rhythm & Noise by Theodore Gracyk since that book explores related ideas on the other side of the pop/art music divide.