Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Contents -- Part one: Music as sign -- Chapter 1. Is music sign? -- Chapter 2. Signs in music history, history of music semiotics -- Chapter 3. Signs as acts and events: On musical situations -- Part two: Gender, biology, and transcendence -- Chapter 4. Metaphors of nature and organicism in music: A "biosemiotic" approach -- Chapter 5. The emancipation of the sign: On corporeal and gestural meanings in music -- Chapter 6. Body and transcendence in Chopin -- Part three: Social and musical practices -- Chapter 7. Voice and identity -- Chapter 8. On the semiosis of musical improvisation: From Mastersingers to Bororo indians -- Notes -- References -- Name index