Dalla focalizzazione delle canzoni allo spazio diegetico e non-diegetico

Sulle strategie filmico-audiovisive nella popular music

Authors

  • Dario Martinelli Kaunas University of Technology

Abstract

The essay explores the intersections between popular music and audiovisuality, with particular attention to the use of narrative and representational strategies shared by songs and audiovisual texts. This is first approached through the analysis of Luca Marconi’s work, which identifies five categories of focus in songs (on the speaker, the protagonist, the chorus leader, the author, and the performer), and subsequently by introducing a semiotic square that intersects the dimensions of diegetic/non-diegetic and formal/non-formal, in order to describe musical and textual elements that go beyond the “official” narrative of the song—such as spontaneous exclamations, studio count-ins, mistakes, or interpretive variations. Finally, the essay discusses cases of hybridization and ambiguity between diegesis and non-diegesis, leading to reflections on phenomena such as the breaking of the fourth wall in songs, and self-reflexive songs that thematize themselves or their own creative process.

Author Biography

Dario Martinelli, Kaunas University of Technology

Prof. Dr. Dario Martinelli (1974), musicologist and semiotician, is Full Professor of History and Theory of Arts at Kaunas University of Technology, and is also affiliated to the University of Helsinki, as Adjunct Professor in Semiotics and Musicology, and to the University of Lapland, as Adjunct Professor in Methodologies of Semiotics and Communication Studies.

As of 2025, he has published 17 monographs and ca. 200 among edited collections, studies and scientific articles. His most recent monographs within the musical semiotic area include: Here Comes the Sign – The Semiotics of Popular Music (Springer, 2025), The Beatles and the Beatlesque – A crossdisciplinary Analysis of Sound, Production and Stylistic Impact (Springer, 2023) and Give Peace a Chant – Popular Music, Politics and Social Protest (Springer, 2017). 

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Published

2025-09-15

How to Cite

Martinelli, D. (2025). Dalla focalizzazione delle canzoni allo spazio diegetico e non-diegetico: Sulle strategie filmico-audiovisive nella popular music. Gli Spazi Della Musica, 13, 112–130. Retrieved from https://ojsunito33.archicoop.it/index.php/spazidellamusica/article/view/12588

Issue

Vol. 13 (2024): Semiotica, musicologia e popular music studies in dialogo – Per Luca Marconi (I)

Section

Essays

License

Licenza Creative Commons
This work is provided under the terms of the Creative Commons license Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported. The authors maintains all the the rights of the articles published in «Gli spazi della musica», included the publication rights.