> different sized spaces work semiotically the same way
Actually I'll nitpick myself about this. They aren't the same, semiotically, because traditional musical notation is purely symbolic (the signs have literally nothing to do with the signified) whereas white spaces would be somewhere in between indices and icons, which do share some semblences of some kind with the signified. In this case, width of space maps to duration of time, which is a fairly basic embodied metaphor in the George Lakoff sense.
Actually I'll nitpick myself about this. They aren't the same, semiotically, because traditional musical notation is purely symbolic (the signs have literally nothing to do with the signified) whereas white spaces would be somewhere in between indices and icons, which do share some semblences of some kind with the signified. In this case, width of space maps to duration of time, which is a fairly basic embodied metaphor in the George Lakoff sense.