The Semiotics of the Encore :: Concert Music Audience Papers

The Semiotics of the Encore IntroductionIn this reflexive paper, I neediness to add a brief addendum to the literature about the semiotics of performance by examining the semiotic acts that surround the ritual of the encore in a live concert performance. I will bring to my analysis of this phenomena my twenty-some years of experience witnessing rock concerts in venues of all sizes and with a wide variety of audiences and performers. I will argue that there are specific elements to this ritual that are of particular interest to semioticians. I am going to attempt an admittedly sketchy semiotic analysis of the encore based on Daniel Chandlers guidelines for D.I.Y. Semiotic Analysis, as found at http//www.aber.ac.uk/dgc/sem12.html.The Umwelt of the Encore What are the important signifiers and what do they signify? - What is the corpse within which these signs make sense? - What connotations seem to be involved? (Chandler, based on Berger, 40-41)The Umwelt of the concert goer, or semi otic stage of this event, includes the literal stage, which is raised to a great or lesser degree above the seats on the main floor of the concert hall the levels of seating--the class structure, to put it in Marxist harm the ushers and/or security the tickets which are required to gain admittance as well as the background of prior experiences that the concertgoer brings with him or her, and an infinite number of different aspects.Of course, this Umwelt, like all Umwelten, is not identical or universal for all of the concertgoers. Each individual member of the audience builds up their own particular friendship structures of this kind of event these structures form their own particular Umwelt. The more experiences of concerts, the more complex the Umwelt constructed around them. For instance, the Grateful Dead often performed two sets without an opening act. to the highest degree concerts feature two acts with an interim between them. A friend of mine, unfamiliar with the way th e Deads music and the way they structured their concerts, went to her first Dead show and in the intermission between sets, said loudly, as it had been twenty minutes or so since the band had left the stage, Gee, when are the Dead coming on? This was greeted with howls of chaff from her surrounding neighbors, whose Dead-concert Umwelt was more developed. The most important aspect of the rock-concert Umwelt, I would argue, isnt directly observable the invisible ring or wall around the stage which separates the performers from the audience.