Musical Knowledge

Examines the tension between intuitive and analytical ways of making sense of the world by exploring musical knowledge and experience.

The understanding of music involves the mastery of its various layers of meaning. Sometimes this meaning can be acquired through human insight; at other times, it can be learned. The central concern of Musical Knowledge is the tension between intuitive and analytical ways of making sense of the world. Keith Swanwick examines this relationship on three levels: in considering music as a way of knowing; as the apparent predicament between qualitative and quantitative research paradigms; and as a tension in education. Keith Swanwick guides his reader from a theoretical exploration of musical knowledge, through an examination of ways of researching the musical experience to a concluding section which will be of direct practical help to teachers. He suggests ways in which music education can be a vital transaction, giving examples across a range of music teaching, including school classroom and instrumental studios. The book will be of interest to anyone who makes or responds to music.

"When this book was first published ni 1967, the material contained in its eight chapters related specifically to the content of the Grade One to Eighty Theory of Music written examinations of Trinity College. This revised edition takes into account most of the changes which have been introduced more recently in those examinations, but may not match their content in every aspect. It is now offered as a general text book on the subject, in the hope that sudents preparing for any theory of music examinations will find it helpful..."--From introduction.

"In Sound Authorities, Edward J. Gillin shows how experiences of music and sound played a crucial role in nineteenth-century scientific inquiry in Britain. Where other studies have focused on vision in Victorian England, Gillin focuses on hearing and aurality, making the claim that the development of the natural sciences in Britain in this era cannot be understood without attending to how the study of sound and music contributed to the fashioning of new scientific knowledge. Gillin's book is about how scientific practitioners attempted to fashion themselves as authorities on sonorous phenomena, coming into conflict with traditional musical elites as well as religious bodies. Gillin pays attention to not only musical sound but also the phenomenon of sound in non-musical contexts, specifically, the cacophony of British industrialization, and he analyzes the debates between figures from disparate fields over the proper account of musical experience. Gillin's story begins with the place of acoustics in early nineteenth-century London, examining scientific exhibitions, lectures, and spectacles, as well as workshops, laboratories, and showrooms. He goes on to explore how mathematicians mobilized sound in their understanding of natural laws and their vision of a harmonious order, as well as the convergence of aesthetic and scientific approaches to pitch standardization. In closing, Gillin delves into the era's religious and metaphysical debates over the place of music (and humanity) in nature, the relationship between music and the divine, and the tension between religious/spiritualist understandings of sound and scientific/materialist ones"--

FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE AS OPEN ACCESS BOOK! This book illustrates the acquisition of knowledge in a musician’s performative practice, and how this can contribute to the development of Artistic Research. Using a broad understanding of ‘knowledge,’ the first part of the book presents aspects of the practitioner knowledge a musician develops through daily exercises and performances. Technical and practical skills, creativity and music reading are central topics. Part II describes four different methodologies of knowledge accumulation. First is the hypothetico-deductive method (music as object). Then the author asks, “Where is the musical work?” After an introduction to semiotics, the question that must follow is “Is music a language?” Following up methodologies focusing on intersubjective and contextual topics, the presentation of hermeneutics generates the question “What happens to the music when you are listening?” Being the most subjective, phenomenology is the last methodology to be presented. The question it poses is “Are analysis and interpretation two sides of the same coin?” Artistic research is a new perspective in knowledge acquisition, and the performing artist is the pivot point. The obvious insight positioning music beyond the score is elaborated into a critique of the representational theory as a relevant ontological discourse in music. As an alternative, the potential in embodied meaning theories is discussed through cognitive, linguistic and artistic approaches. Artistic expressions convey the subjective practitioner knowledge based on the difference between the objective sign and the intersubjective expression. This makes music as communication the ultimate topic. In conclusion, understanding the meaning construction and the conditions of artistic content are both of importance in artistic research.

This 3rd edition of Learning to Teach Music in the Secondary School has been thoroughly revised to take account of the latest initiatives, research and scholarship in the field of music education, and the most recent changes to the curriculum. By focusing on overarching principles, it aims to develop reflective practitioners who will creatively and critically examine their own and others’ ideas about music education, and the ways in which children learn music. Providing an overview of contemporary issues in music teaching and learning from a range of perspectives, the book focuses on teaching music musically, and enables the reader to: place music education in its historical and social context consider the nature of musical knowledge and how teachers can facilitate their students to learn musically critically analyse the frameworks within which music teachers work develop an understanding of composing, performing and responding to music, as well as key issues such as creativity, individual needs and assessment examine aspects of music beyond the classroom and how effective links can be made between curriculum music and music outside of school. Including a range of case studies, tasks and reflections to help student teachers integrate the theory and practice of music education effectively, this new edition will provide invaluable support, guidance and challenges for teachers at all stages of their careers, as well as being a useful resource for teacher educators in a wide range of settings.

What does it mean to hear scientifically? What does it mean to see musically? This volume uncovers a new side to the long nineteenth century in London, a hidden history in which virtuosic musical entertainment and scientific discovery intersected in remarkable ways. Sound Knowledge examines how scientific truth was accrued by means of visual and aural experience, and, in turn, how musical knowledge was located in relation to empirical scientific practice. James Q. Davies and Ellen Lockhart gather work by leading scholars to explore a crucial sixty-year period, beginning with Charles Burney’s ambitious General History of Music, a four-volume study of music around the globe, and extending to the Great Exhibition of 1851, where musical instruments were assembled alongside the technologies of science and industry in the immense glass-encased collections of the Crystal Palace. Importantly, as the contributions show, both the power of science and the power of music relied on performance, spectacle, and experiment. Ultimately, this volume sets the stage for a new picture of modern disciplinarity, shining light on an era before the division of aural and visual knowledge.