An overview of musical meaning studies in the proceedings of SIMCAM

Abstract

This text presents the analysis of papers that discuss the concept of Musical Meaning, and it's ramifications in SIMCAM's proceedings, regarding their classification in Cognition area, and consequently in Musical Cognition. First, we present a brief overview of cognition's divisions, such as Cognitivism, Connectionism and Dynamic Cognition as presented by Varela et al (2003) and their developments in Musical Cognition.  Subsequently, we present the analysis process and classification realized in SIMCAM's papers. From 522 papers (excluding posters and conferences abstracts) were selected 69 papers that aims the Musical Meaning or were somehow related to Musical Meaning. Considering the contents and references, these papers were classified, considering Cognitions ramifications, as 1 paper in the Connectionism area, 15 papers in Cognitivism area, 46 papers in Dynamic Cognition area and 7 papers in which references points to more that one area. We Concluded considering that the SIMCAM's researchers have been dedicated to Dynamic Cognitions, the most recent division, proving the pioneer spirit and quality of this research area, and the need for future research aiming to consolidate these data expanding to other areas in Musical Cognition besides the concept of Musical Meaning.