Iconic realism in Music

Click the image above to hear ambient music with nature sounds

From my book, p. 77: 

A community will associate specific meaning with a sound, connecting interpretation with cultural significance. Continued and consistent associations with sound sources create iconic structures within the musical compositions of the community. These structures originate from musical instruments including the human voice, sounds of the environment, or synthesized sound sources, each source signifying a specific aspect of a community’s culture. 

A composer incorporates the semiotic theory of iconic realism through placement of the established iconic structure in a new, realistic setting, not traditional for such an iconic structure. The created dissonance alerts the listening audience to a new association, bringing awareness to a cultural dilemma represented by this innovative musical construct.  

Since music is an aural art form, the structure which music contains depends on two parameters: time and space. Sound waves travel through space within a specific time frame. Musical composition consists of metrical patterns, rhythm, arrangement of pitch variations conveyed through instrumentation and notation of musical dynamics changing the speed and intensity of those pitches. A composer determines the amount of time and space needed to express her/his art within these parameters. The semiotic component of music is most present in the genre of opera, in which music aligns with narration aurally and kinesthetically. 

The listener is an active participant in the musical flow, assimilating the sensory stimuli received from the sound source with the tonal information of the musical composition as well as the visual stimulation of the stage presentation. In this sense, the composers, the musicians and the audience collaborate albeit in an autonomous manner, forming an interpretation. 

Iconic realism in music involves the sounds of nature, outer space or any object not associated with a musical instrument, that has been synthesized with traditional musical instruments of an orchestra, jazz group, or contemporary musical group. The juxtaposition of the natural or tech sounds with the orchestral music illustrates an aspect of cultural reform, as established by the composer of the musical piece. 

We hear this kind of musical juxtaposition in many of the spa-like pieces that incorporate the sounds of wolves, birds, frogs with ambient, meditation music. Click the image above to hear an example from YouTube.