1.1 Ways of knowing about music

Introduction

This inquiry -style module delves into a very basic step in any music-learning inquiry: considering where you are "starting from" in your quest to learn more about music, and thinking about where it might be possible to go from where you are. Conducting this inquiry will give you practice in how to do music-learning inquiries. It will also provide useful insights into the types of knowledge that you already have about music and the types of music-learning resources that you have found most useful in the past. These insights should help you find a ground from which you can begin to pursue further music learning.

There are many different ways that you can "know about" music. The discussion below includes five different ways, and there may be more. Ideally, these different types of knowledge complement each other and work together to create a more complete, complex, and useful understanding of music. For example, a musician who is creating an excellent jazz improvisation is probably drawing on music theory and literacy, as well as aural, embodied and cultural knowledge about jazz. When you are learning about music, however, it is often a good idea to concentrate on one type of knowledge at a time, integrating it with other knowledge that you already have. The following section introduces five types of music knowledge. The inquiry that follows will help you think about how to conduct further inquiries that would help you broaden each aspect of your music knowledge.

Five ways of knowing about music

Cultural knowledge

The cultural knowledge that you have about music is your knowledge about how the music fits into culture and society. Who would play a piece of music? When and where would they play it, and how would they be dressed? What are the reasons and the rules for playing this kind of music? Who would listen to it, and how would you expect them to react?

If you are not a musician yourself, you may find the cultural aspects of musical performances to be among the most interesting, as well as the easiest for you to learn about. Even if you are most interested in the music for its own sake, separate from the people who create it, you will find that cultural aspects of the music have important effects on the music itself. For example, songs for dancing usually have a strong and regular beat, and popular songs tend to have a slightly-repetitive refrain that is easy to recognize and remember.

Even if you believe you have no knowledge about music at all, you almost certainly have some cultural knowledge about the music traditions around you. For example, if you know what month "Silent Night" should be played, why the audience claps in the middle of live jazz performances, how to dress for a Beethoven concert, or where to go if you want to dance on Saturday night, that is cultural knowledge about music.