If notation reconstitutes music as a semiotic system—a structured potential for the production of musical instances—then music theory emerges as a further transformation. It does not couple directly to music as value, nor does it participate in the co-instantiation characteristic of song. Instead, it operates upon the semiotic construal of music produced through notation and related abstractions.
This is a different order of relation.
Music theory is not a coupling of meaning with value, but a coupling of meaning with meaning derived from value.
It is, in this sense, a second-order coupling.
1. The Object of Theory
To understand the specificity of music theory, we must first be precise about its object.
Music, as value, is not directly available to theory. It unfolds as coordinated event, not as a structured field that can be inspected independently of its instantiation. Notation, however, provides such a field: a semiotic system in which musical potential is spatialised, stabilised, and made available for manipulation.
It is this construed system—not the value system itself—that becomes the object of theory.
Thus:
theory does not describe musical events as such
it operates on representations of potential events
This distinction is frequently obscured. The language of theory—“this passage modulates,” “this chord resolves,” “this theme develops”—appears to refer directly to music. But its actual object is the semiotic construct through which music has been reconstituted.
2. From System to Meta-System
If notation constructs a system of potential instances, theory constructs a meta-system: a system of relations over that system.
This involves:
identifying regularities across notated structures
abstracting patterns (scales, chords, forms)
formulating rules, tendencies, and constraints
These operations do not produce new musical instances. They produce statements about the system—generalisations that can be applied across instances, whether actual or potential.
Theory thus operates at a different level of abstraction:
notation construes what could be instantiated
theory construes how such instantiations are related
The coupling is no longer between value and meaning, but between meaning and its own derived structures.
3. The Illusion of Direct Access
A persistent effect of second-order coupling is the illusion that theory provides direct access to music itself.
Because theory speaks in terms that appear to map onto musical experience—tension, resolution, movement—it is often taken to be describing intrinsic properties of music. In fact, it is describing relations within a semiotic system that has already transformed music into a structured potential.
This illusion is not accidental. It arises from the success of notation in stabilising patterns across instances. When those patterns are abstracted and systematised, they appear to belong to the music itself.
But this is a retrospective projection:
theory does not uncover the structure of music as value; it organises the structure of music as construed through meaning.
4. Constraint, Prescription, and Generation
Once established, theoretical systems can feed back into practice.
They can:
constrain composition by prescribing allowable relations
guide analysis by highlighting particular patterns
enable new forms of production by providing generative frameworks
In this way, second-order coupling can begin to shape first-order activity. Composers may write “according to” a theory; performers may interpret “in light of” an analytical framework.
However, this feedback does not collapse the distinction between levels. The theory remains a semiotic system operating over another semiotic system. Its influence on musical practice is mediated through the reconstitution of value under meaning, not through direct intervention in the value system itself.
5. Multiplicity of Theories
Because theory operates on semiotic construals, and because those construals are themselves variable, there is no single, necessary theory of music.
Different theoretical frameworks:
select different features of the notated system
construct different relations among them
produce different generalisations and priorities
This multiplicity is not a weakness or a failure of convergence. It is a structural consequence of second-order coupling. There is no privileged pathway from value to theory; there are only multiple construals of construals.
6. The Drift Toward Ontologisation
A recurrent tendency within music theory is the drift from description to ontology: the reification of theoretical constructs as if they were inherent features of music itself.
Concepts such as:
“the tonic”
“functional harmony”
“formal archetypes”
are often treated as if they existed within the music, rather than within the semiotic systems used to construe it.
This drift is not merely terminological. It reflects a deeper conflation:
the collapse of the distinction between value and meaning, mediated by the success of second-order coupling.
To resist this collapse, the levels must be kept distinct:
music as value
notation as semiotic reconstitution
theory as semiotic operation on that reconstitution
7. From Reconstitution to Abstraction
With theory, the relation between value and meaning has moved yet further from the immediacy of co-instantiation.
In song, value and meaning are anchored in the same event
In notation, value is reconstituted as a semiotic system of potential
In theory, meaning operates on that system, producing abstractions over abstractions
The coupling is now mediated at two removes from the original value system. What is gained is a powerful capacity for generalisation, comparison, and invention. What is lost is any direct relation to music as coordinated event.
8. The Limits of Theory
None of this diminishes the importance of music theory. On the contrary, it clarifies its function.
Theory does not tell us what music is. It tells us:
how music has been construed
how those construals can be systematised
how they can be extended and transformed
Its domain is not value, but meaning—specifically, meaning about meaning derived from value.
To treat theory as foundational is to invert the order of dependence. Theory depends on notation; notation depends on the reconstitution of value; and value itself remains prior to both.
9. The Next Transformation
If second-order coupling represents the operation of meaning upon its own derived structures, the question arises: what happens when meaning does not merely operate on value, but seeks to organise and regulate it?
This is not the domain of music, but of other social formations—religion, ideology, nationalism—where symbolic systems often claim authority over coordinated practice.
There, the coupling shifts again: from co-instantiation and reconstitution to dominance.
It is to this form of coupling that we now turn.
Music theory stands at a peculiar distance from its object. It is neither within music as value, nor simply alongside it. It operates in a space opened by the reconstitution of music under semiotic construal—a space in which meaning can turn back upon itself and generate systems of increasing abstraction.
This reflexivity is powerful. It enables entire domains of analysis, pedagogy, and composition. But it also carries a risk: that the products of second-order coupling come to be mistaken for the ground from which they arise.
To hold the distinction is not to diminish theory, but to situate it precisely within the broader field of relations between value and meaning.
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