In the first level of emotion (1.1), what appears is nothing else than a simple, positive and pure quality of feeling. As this is impossible because we are never in a position to say that such and such a dynamical interpretant is the final one, any dynamical interpretant is always in medias res of the final interpretant which is permanently in a state of becoming. If it were possible to reach the ultimate limit of the sign’s interpretability, the final interpretant would be fully realized. It is the empirical performance of the dynamical, singular interpretants which is responsible for the growth of the power of the sign to be interpreted. “It is the idea of the sign as it would come to be regularly and completely interpreted in an ideal long-run course of semiosis” (Ransdell ibid.). It would be the ultimate realization of the interpretability of the sign, the ultimate realization of the potentiality to signify inscribed in the immediate interpretant. The final or normal interpretant, the interpretant in itself is Third and corresponds to a final, ideal limit of interpretation, which is never actually attainable. This effect has always the nature of a sign or quasi sign which may find its translation into an external sign. When the sign reaches any interpreter, an effect will be produced in that mind. It is therefore the empirical, existential, and in the case of the human interpreter, it is a psychological fact.

The dynamical interpretant is Secondness the interpretant that is effectively produced in the mind of any interpreter. It is only when this encounter happens that at least a portion of that potential will be put into action by the interpreter.

Therefore, this interpretant is inside the sign, it objectively belongs to the sign, and is independent of its encounter with any interpreter. “It is the range – always vaguely circumscribed – of the interpretant-generating power of the sign in a given time” (Ransdell 1983 : 42). Hence, the immediate interpretant is Firstness it is the potential to mean inscribed in the sign itself. In a panoramic view that can be supplemented by a more detailed study (Santaella 1996), the interpretants – which Peirce calls immediate, dynamical and final or normal – are studied by him in the light of the logic of the three categories. As my classification aims at the processes of reception in a broad sense, I found its foundation in the different interpretative levels formulated by Peirce in his classification of the interpretants. It is not concerned with the chronological study of listening by means of musical examples from historical periods and their respective social context, as the well known Listening to Music, by Crayg (2008), is. The classification of the modes of listening to music that I will present in this paper, will take as its starting point Moraes’ tripartite division.

5 types of listening with examples