A museme is a minimal unit of musical meaning, analogous to a morpheme in linguistics, "the basic unit of musical expression which in the framework of one given musical system is not further divisible without destruction of meaning." A museme may:
The term was brought to popularity by Philip Tagg,[1][2] derived from the work of Charles Seeger.[3]: 189
Musematic repetition ("repetition of musemes"[3]: 269 ) is simple repetition "at the level of the short figure, often used to generate an entire structural framework."[3]: 189 and contrasted with discursive repetition, in which the repetition is not so precise.
Tagg1979
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Tagg2013
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Middleton1990
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).