This document discusses conceptual metaphors in music through the lens of the Study and Research Group on Musical Metaphors (GERMM). It provides examples of conceptual metaphors that understand musical ideas in terms of other domains, such as architecture, language, and the body. The group aims to study the links between metaphorical language, conceptual metaphors, and our physical and sensory experiences of music through techniques like questionnaires, interviews, motion capture, and neuroimaging. Their research could provide insights into how metaphor, expectation, and embodiment relate to musical meaning and response.

1. GERMM
Groupe d'Étude et de Recherche sur les Métaphores Musicales
Study and Research Groupe on Musical Metaphors

2. • The “meaning” results of an interaction.
• The interaction is correlated with expectation.
Metaphors
• Conceptual metaphors
• Figure of speech

3. Conceptual metaphors
Understanding one idea in term of another
E. g. understanding quantity in term of directionality
Prices are rising.
The melody goes up and down
Change of frequency

4. Target domain Source domain (time, space, body motion)
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980)
Love is a journey
• We are going nowhere
• We can’t turn back now
• This relationship is a dead-end street
• You will find your way
Love is a journey
Conceptual metaphors
Understanding one idea in term of another

5. Conceptual metaphors
Understanding one idea in term of another
Music is ?
A theme ?
A musical structure ?

6. A fugue is a cathedral
Contrapuntal
organization
Strength, static engineering.
Ornamentation Ornamental details
Contained emotion Austerity
Secrets (B.A.C.H.) Esotericism, symbolic
Target domain Source domain
Music is architecture

7. A fugue is a play
Form :
Exposition – development…
Dramatic progression :
presentation – complication –
denouement
Subject A character
Accompaniment Secondary character
Episodes Interludes
Target domain Source domain

8. A set of themes is a family
Themes Members of the family
Thematic
relationships
Family relationships
A fugue family dispute
A fugue is a battle
Subject and answer Hunter and target
Composition Strategy
Voices in a polyphony Soldiers in an army

9. Music is an image
A chord ?
A theme ?
A musical structure ?

10. Target domain Source domain
Score is music
The score is an image
Analysis: a cognitive information
The deformation: affective impact
The power of the Schenkerian analysis results of the interaction of both.

11. Anamorphosis:
• Information: The number of
internet connections /day.
• Affective impact: The deformation
of the known shape of the map
The power of the anamorphosis results of the interaction of both.

12. A fugue is a speech
Form Rhetorical construction of a
speech
Formal parts:
introduction,
exposition, etc.
Rhetoric : exhorde,
exposition, etc.
Ornamentation Rhetorical devices
Affects Affects
Metaphors
Figure of speech
Music is a language

13. Time (syntax)
Speech/music
Source:
• Percevoir la musique: Une activité cognitive, Marion Pineau, Barbara
Tillmann (ed. L'Hermattan, 2001)
• Influence du contexte sur le traitement en musique et en language,
Barbara Tillmann, Lisianne Hoch et Frédéric Marmel, in Musique, Langage,
Émotion. Approche neuro-cognitive. (PUR, 2010)
Metaphors
Figure of speech
E.g. The investigation of the influence of global harmonic structures on priming
effects in music.

14. is a wonderful placeSan Francisco
New York
Metaphors
Figure of speech

15. • A word acquires a new meaning through a
comparison which is in the mind.
• Two thoughts of different things work together.
• Almost all metaphors cause an emotional response.
Metaphors
Figure of speech
Paris is a wonderful ocean

16. • Chord 1 induces chord 2
• Chord 1 “is” suspended
1
2
What about a chord that has two “meanings” ?
• VI
• A minor1 :
• I
• C major
2:

17. One suspended
process induces
suspension
Three
completed
processes that
are the C
chord
The “a minor” quality of the chord results of the interaction of both processes.

18. Beta waves (~15-20 Hz) Gamma waves (~28-48 Hz)
Amplitudechanges(%)
Amplitudechanges(%)
Time (ms) Time (ms)
Musical and brain waves
Novelty and expectations
Fujioka et al., (2009) Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169.

19. The source domains of conceptual metaphors allow to talk
about music with similarities to the spatial dimension - which
includes physical dimension - touch, gesture, skin ... – that
is correlated.
We would like to understand the links between metaphorical
language, conceptuals metaphors and aspects of our
physical and sensory experience.
Music is gestures

21. Composer Musician Listeners
• Ideas
• Gestures
• Conceptual
metaphors
• Gestures
when playing
• Gestures and
movements
like dance.
Embodiment
and body
metaphors.
• Questionnaires
• Interviews
• Thermographic camera
• Questionnaires
• fMRI
• VICON motion capture
• Questionnaires
Investigation techniques :

22. Adapted Lens Model (Brunswik, 1956)

25. Left & Entire face

28. Brain and Behaviour Laboratory

30. Study and Research Groupe on Musical
Metaphors
GERMM
http://www.germm.org

31. Thank you to
Carole Varone and
Aurélie Coulon
and the SwissNex team