It is important to mention that in his pioneering work on neural correlates of musical semantics or meaning Stefan Koelsch [12] avoids the "language of emotion trap" by not reducing research on musical semantics to research on music and emotions (cf. [10]). He distinguishes extra-, intra-musical and musicogenic meaning. "Musicogenic" is used in interpreting "musical meaning" in the sense of significance, the value of music. Extra-musical meaning is related to N400 whereas N5 to intra-musical meaning. Event-related potentials such as N400, music closure positive shift for phrase boundaries (MCPS; cf. [11,15]) or P600 [17] indicate shared neural networks involved in common processing of language and music (cf. also [5]). N5, it is claimed, is an indicator for neural activities specific to processing (intra-)musical meaning. Furthermore, Koelsch intends to set up a conceptual framework for research on musical meaning. This comment focuses on the aspect of using sign theory for setting up a conceptual framework for research on the semantics of language and music considering the problem of connecting research in the humanities and social sciences to research in the brain and cognitive sciences.
'Musical meaning' has been one of the major research topics in the history of Western music research in particular in musicology and philosophy. It has been associated with ethics and aesthetics. Music as a 'language of emotion' and a medium of expressing inner feelings as a related topic was introduced in the eighteenth century. 'Music' became a fine art being distinguished from 'music' as a discipline of mathematical or scientific research in the quadrivium of the liberal arts or acoustics (cf. for details e.g. [20]).
Today, foundational music research strives for a theory of music as a part of a scientific theory of mind and as such is an enterprise of cognitive science of or the neurosciences of music. Explanatory goal of a theory of music is music as such or in modern terms the "music faculty". Research on "musical meaning" belongs to the domain of a theory of music and is part of foundational research on music.
Stefan Koelsch's [12] and Aniruddh Patel's [16] pioneering work in cognitive neuroscience tackles with the problem of musical meaning and meaning in language explicitly in a comparative way. It must be regarded as foundational research in musicology and a contribution to a theory of music too. Moreover, Patel [16] proposes a research program based on a comparative approach to music and language. Both Koelsch and Patel refer to semiotics/semantics or semiology as a broader conceptual framework for research in cognitive neuroscience on musical meaning. In particular,