Primary Music Magazine
Issue 3.2 Summer 2019
In pursuit of knowledge
Dr Liz Stafford considers the idea of musical knowledge I recently attended an event where the delegates were split into teams and each asked to plan a different area of the music curriculum. Somewhat confusingly these were not as one might reasonably expect Performing, Listening, and Composing, but Skills, Knowledge, Understanding and Experiences! Setting aside the fact that you wouldn’t want to plan any of these in isolation from one another, it got me to thinking – how is knowledge different from understanding? In a skills-based subject, are skills knowledge? And how can we develop knowledge if not through experience?
10
There are some very long held definitions of ‘musical knowledge’ where the term ‘knowledge’ encompasses all forms of musical learning. My favourite is the separation into knowledge how (skills), knowledge about (facts) and
