In the case of absolute music especially, the music is the text, and it expresses the inexpressible and even the inexplicable: There is simply no linguistic text to hermeneutically analyze for semiotic signifiers. However, that is not to say that a keenly developed awareness of semiotics is not usefull for the composer or theorist. To the contrary, traditional analysis techniques have as their main shortcomings that they totally and completely remove all traces of the signifiers that elicit emotional response. It is the nebulousness of the responses elicited that is the problem: Different listeners with divergent cultural backgrounds or life experiences may experience quite different things. As a result, the signifiers in music will never aquire definitive labels, and that is simply that.
This need not hang up those of us who are composers, though I would think that a particularly rigorous theorist would be left with a certain uneasiness when dealing with such a slippery subject.
The last course I took at UNT during my doctoral studies was The Semiotics of Music. It was taught by a very cool and funny prof named Dr. Schwartz, if memory serves. Since it was just a three hour credit and a single semester course, I certainly don't claim to be any kind of a expert on this subject. However, I found the subject quite fascinating and useful if I - as is my usual practice with all things theoretical - took what I liked, flushed what I didn't, and bent the process to fit my method of working (Actually, semiotics created some completely new methodologies for me to use).
What works for me as I develop a piece is to decide what the materials I come up with signify to me, and how I can elicit various shades of meaning by varying them and contrasting them with other materials. Believe it or not, this works great as an approach to fugue writing. I kid you not. Writing different counterpoint to a fugue subject can radically change the feelings elicited, and this can add a great deal of charm to a fugue. Not only that, but episodic passages can set the stage for the appearance of these variations - while they function as signifiers themselves - and can put them into a sort of bas relief which only serves to increase their effectiveness. Needless to say, composers such as Bach and Beethoven have been doing this since long before semiotics appeared as a field of study.
In the guitar fugue I wrote a while back, I found that I could write countersubjects to the major mode variant of the subject that elicited smiles from me because the result reminded me of the kind of music that is often played on a steam calliope. I remain doubtful that this signifier would be relatable to very many people, and am certain that folks who have never heard a steam calliope (Or the music I've heard played on one) would recognize the sign for what signifies to me. That's not the point though: The point is to include semiotic elements that signify specific things to you as the composer.
In the case of absolute music which is not intentionally programatic in nature, the signifiers that you chose will relate something to the listener, and the variety of responses are really of no concern to you as a composer (Though I find audience members who share what my music meant to them to be highly entertaining, and their descriptions range from the absurd to the sublime. That's one of the most endearing things about music in my opinion: Everybody creates their own little universe within it).
The bottom line concerning semiotics in music to me, is that it gives me another set of tactical and strategic tools to use in the creation of art. Just as I've never met a redhead I didn't like, I've never found a music theory approach I couldn't make some use out of.
OK. I take that back.
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