What is understanding music?

[Otso]

The title pretty much says it all, what do you think that understanding music means?

[HomeBrewTJ]

I don't understand.

[Matthew Bryson]

When I first joined a rock and roll band, I could barely play the changes to this song on my guitar, now I've become quite proficient at it. I can play this song, and many others, I can play my guitar, I can strum it rhythmically, I can sing and dance while I play…

[Phalex]

Alanis Morissette does some pretty understanding music.

[ogrossman]

I've had this discussion a number of times with other musicians. I've concluded that there are endless levels that you can understand the music on.

For instance:

1) Understanding the melody
2) Understanding the underlying chord structure
3) Understanding the song's structure (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.)
4) Understanding the song's emotional imagery
5) Understanding a musical genre (rock, blues, jazz, etc.)
6) Understanding a composer’s (or song writer’s) entire body of work
etc.
etc.
etc.

I think it's a very meaningful question and the answer is different for every musician depending on what level you play at and what you hope to get from your music.

[BassChuck]

This is a slippery question. But for me it means having an awareness of:

1.) How music is created
2.) Why it is created
3.) What its purpose is
4.) How to insure that the best parts of music can be preserved and passed on to audience, fellow musicians, and students.
5.) Knowing that what can be considered the best music in one place is the least music in another.
6.) Realizing that the 'thing' that makes music great can be destroyed quite easily.
7.) In the end, the feeling (whatever that is for whatever kind of music you are considering) that is given to the listener is greater than the performer.

[ogrossman]

Originally Posted by BassChuck

1.) How music is created
2.) Why it is created
3.) What its purpose is
4.) How to insure that the best parts of music can be preserved and passed on to audience, fellow musicians, and students.
5.) Knowing that what can be considered the best music in one place is the least music in another.
6.) Realizing that the 'thing' that makes music great can be destroyed quite easily.
7.) In the end, the feeling (whatever that is for whatever kind of music you are considering) that is given to the listener is greater than the performer.

I had numbers 1) through 6); you gotta start with 7) at least

[baba]

Keep listening and you'll figure it out..

[mjolnir]

I'm not sure, but I think the answer you seek is tied in some fundamental way to the mystery of the carrot...

[MirageBass]

Something a friend of mine wrote. I think you can see where it applies.

"Einstein's Son and the Sailboat

I remember reading once how Einstein took his son sailing. I forgot how old he was, but it was the sons' first time sailing. The son was old enough, though, to have a very solid knowledge of physics. And the story goes how disappointed Einstein was that his son struggled with figuring out how to adjust the sails. The fundamentals of sailing are, in truth, basic applied physics that someone who truly understood the basic principles of physics would be able to figure out what sail needed to be adjusted in what way to achieve the desired result. But, his son struggled to make a connection between these abstract formulas called "physics" and this new activity of sailing, which showe his father he really didn't understand phyics much at all.

To me, that's the difference between an intellectual and a person that just knows a lot of ****. If you really know your stuff, you can use it beyond little abstract arenas and find new and interesting ways to apply it. It's functional. And there's a pretty big gap there. Someone asked me the other day why I revolve so much of my philosophies around the functional, and that's because that's generally how you find out if you have a clue of what the **** you're talking about. You'd be suprise how much you can know without really knowing much at all across a massive range of displines. And there you sit with a false sense of confidence that you know what the hell you're talking about until you get a wake up call.

To cross over the line from "person that knows a lot of ****" to becoming an intellectual, I think, for me, it just revolves around a basic ability to do what Einstein's son couldn't across a certain range of disciplines. Looking smart, or reading a bunch of books, or getting a bunch of fancy degrees, or spitting about a bunch of fluffy language can easily mean jack and ****, and can easily do nothing for you. A bum on the street can be an intellectual and so can a complete *******. Ultimately, that flows into all the other products of the intellectual: valuable creative and critical thought. Not that a "person that knows a lot of ****" can't produce those things (far from it), but there will always be a ceiling on that persons' potential. The problem is achieving that sort of understanding requires stupid amounts of effort and positive influences a good portion of the time.

Not that being an intellectual makes you a worthy human being or something...you're still a water bag full of carbon like the rest of us assholes. But, it does make you a better person. Grasping the basic principles behind the **** that's going on around us changes your brain for the better in an inumerable amount of ways, most which you'll never notice. Let me put it this way: if any kid of mine grew up and wasn't an intellectual in their own idiosyncractic way that follows their natural curiosities, i'd feel at least partially as a failure as a parent. Human beings are meant to be intellectuals, even the not so smart ones. I believe that should be probably the primary objective of education where, in reality, modern education is probably one of the biggest reasons people struggle to achieve that state.

"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death”
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."-einstein"

[uethanian]

understanding music is having the ability to look at it from both a logical aspect and a passionate one.

[Mark Wilson]

As a performer, understanding music is being able, through the use of notes, to portray what your thinking to the audience.

Beethoven, Mozart and Bach understood music.

[morf]

Originally Posted by Mark Wilson

As a performer, understanding music is being able, through the use of notes, to portray what your thinking to the audience.

Beethoven, Mozart and Bach understood music.

Yep, that's also my opinion. Understanding music means being able to feel, or understand the feeling that the musician or composer (or both) try to express through the music.