Document Type : Original Article
Authors
Associate Prof., University of Art, Tehran
Abstract
Abstract
This essay is a study about medium aspects of popular music in the culture- belief viewpoint which is out
came from Structural-Marxism approach to society and its’ various levels(politic, economic, legal regime and
so on), which is based on theories of Structural-Marxism critics like Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser.
Therefore with emphasize on communicative role of popular music, as a medium in modern societies, among
the factors and various levels of society in mass culture and consumer marketing(bazaar) necessities, through
a semiotic methodology, studies the popular music as a main discourse in culture- belief viewpoint.
Thus after some primary definitions from the view of culture-belief and description the main traits of popular
music in this point of view, with its’ highlighted medium function specially in modern society, and after
reviewing permanent concepts of sign and semiotic theories, through comparing Ferdinand de Saussure and
Charles Sanders Peirce’s thoughts and plans, while considering some examples and case studies of Iranian
popular music and movies in 60s to 80s of 20 century (beforeIslamic Revolution of Iran), this issue by
representing a simple plan of a dominant communicative pattern which is taken from “Introductory notes to
the Semiotics of Music” by “Philip Tagg” (1999), will study the semiotic of popular music, in three functions
of medium aspects (functional approaches)of; production, perception, and inner structures or different text
layers, that the inner structures (different text layers) will be more carefully and categorically discussed than
two others.
In medium aspect (functional approach) of production, after emphasize to discriminate each genre of
music from other genres, like popular music from classic music, has been implied some significant signs
such asselfevidences or moods or styles about production processing of popular music for example about;
composer, arrangement, sound engineering and like that. In second medium aspect, perception approach,
with attention to importance of audience role in discussed genre of music (popular music), it expresses some
reasons of deficiency of semiotic studies in this approach. And finally in last approach of medium aspects,
which is inner structures, has been implicit discussed about complicating socio- cultural factors to connotation
different layers of musical and lyric texts in this genre of music and has been explained some musical signs
such as major or minor scale,motifand melodic expression, rhythm, orchestration, and so on.
At the end,with attention to traits, in every of these three approaches of medium aspects; production,
perception and inner structures, and through concentrating on relationship between them and their principal
signs, this article will emphasize on necessities of popular music as a structural unit which is conformed from
differenttextual layers in cultural discourse and it’s consultative socio-cultural background
Keywords