Music semantics refers to the ability of music to convey semantic meaning. Semantics are a key feature of language, and whether music shares some of the same ability to prime and convey meaning has been the subject of recent study.
Evolutionary antecedents
Primate vocalizations are mainly determined by music-like features (such as pitch, amplitude-and frequency-modulations, timbre and rhythm), and it is assumed that human musical abilities played a key phylogenetical part in the evolution of language. Likewise, it is assumed that, ontogenetically, infants’ first steps into language are based on prosodic information, and that musical communication in early childhood (such as maternal music) has a major role for emotional, cognitive and social development of children. The music faculty is in some respects unique to the human species; only humans compose music, learn to play musical instruments and play instruments cooperatively together in groups. Playing a musical instrument in a group is a tremendously demanding task for the human brain that potentially engages all cognitive processes that we are aware of. It involves perception, action, learning, memory, emotion, etc., making music an ideal tool to investigate human cognition and the underlying brain mechanisms. The relatively young discipline of 'neurocognition of music' includes a wide field of biopsychological research, beginning with the investigation of psychoacoustics and the neural coding of sounds, and ending with brain functions underlying cognition and emotion during the perception and production of highly complex musical information.
Semantic priming effect
A sentence such as Sissy sings a song disburdens the neural processing of semantically related words like music, whereas it does not alleviate processing of semantically unrelated words like carpet. This effect is known as the semantic priming effect; it refers to the highly consistent processing advantage seen for words that are preceded by a semantically related context. This semantic processing effect is electrophysically reflected by the N400 component of event related potential (ERP) measurements. The N400 is a negative polarity ERP component that is maximal over centro-parietal electrode sites. It emerges at around 250 ms after the onset of word stimulation and reaches is maximal amplitude at about 400 ms. When a word is preceded by a semantic context, the amplitude of the N400 is inversely related to the degree of semantic congruousness between the word and is preceding semantic context. The processing of almost any type of semantically meaningful information seems to be associated with an N400 effect (Kutas, M. et al.: Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension, Trends Cogn. Sci., 2000).
Semantic information is clearly a key feature of language, but is this kind of information also an important aspect of music?
Most music theorists posit at least four different aspects of musical meaning:
meaning that emerges from a connection across different frames of reference suggested by common patterns or forms (sound patterns in terms of pitch, dynamics, tempo, timbre etc. that resemble features of objects like rushing water, for example) meaning that arises from the suggestion of a particular mood meaning that results from extra-musical associations (national anthem, for example) meaning that can be attributed to the interplay of formal structures in creating patterns of tension and resolution.
Most linguists, however, would reject the notion that music can transfer specific semantic concepts (Pinker, Norton, New York 1997, How the Mind Works). Though the study of Koelsch et al. in 2004 could provide strong behavioural and electrophysiological evidence that music is able to transfer semantic information.