The complementary nature of poetic and musical systems in ritual visits to households

• Main Author: Zakić Mirjana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts - Institute of Musicology of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts 2009-01-01
• Series: Muzikologija
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1450-9814/2009/1450-98140909133Z.pdf

Analysis of poetic texts of the ritual - processions (koledari, lazarice kraljice) in Southeastern Serbia has proved that poetical systems facilitate the differentiation at all levels of semantic relations connected to ritual practice: from denotatum (the current, real objects to which the individual ritual acts refers), specific designatum (mutual concept of given ritual marked with existing denotata), to universal designata (general concept of all rituals, marked with specific designata and content denotata). However with the frequent absence of indexic references (refrains, specific frames and lexemes), poetic texts have become universal in the denotation area of the general idea of fertility among all rituals, and the possibility of fragmentation/ analysis and reality segmentation, which derive from the high communication potential of the verbal system, which contributes towards making key connections with denotata on the syntagmatic plan of the ritual process. In contrast with that, musical texts (as articulated entities or music 'gestalts') are always contextualized and ritually recognizable on a paradigmatic level. In this article the differentiation of poetic and music informative values are stressed: semantic (under which meaning, the presence of objects in the text as a sign, is considered) and numeric (which assigns a numerical quantity of innovation in the text). In a semantic sense, the musical message (in relation to the idea of the ritual) and poetic message (according to a concrete object and possibly the idea of the given ritual) are highly informative. In a numerical sense, again, the values of this message are different. The musical message, at the level of the initial model (starting pattern) holds a highly informative value relating to extramusical concept (designatum). However, its numerical informative value is rapidly reduced by model repetition in further melostrophic appearances. A different principle is at stake when it comes to poetic structuralisation, in which a continuous flow of new verses (new content) produces increscent information. With such a mechanism, in a perceptual sense, the high redundancies of the musical model are being commutated. This redundancy of music content has the function of impacting and integrating it into individual and collective memory. The very thought of this parallel testifies to the frequently stressed differentiality of non-verbal and verbal communicational forms. During informational transfer 'syntax of non-verbal 'language' has to be much simpler than the syntax of spoken or written language'.