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Music and Sound<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Music is a discipline that is primarily concerned with the medium of sound. Acknowledging this, music is often described as \u2018organised sound\u2019. It seems reasonable then that a central aspect of musicianship should be an understanding of music as sound. Appreciating how the acoustic properties of music, such as timbre, duration, pitch, loudness, and directionality are important fundamentals for musicianship. The examination of music as sound, and the consideration of musicianship as the craft of listening to and making sound, provides a reasonably neutral basis for the study of many musical genres, cultures, and practices. Such a study would include the principles of acoustics, how instruments, voices and loudspeakers produce sound, and would also examine properties of the harmonic series which are a doorway to explorations of timbre, harmony and rhythm. In addition, since music is often distributed as sound objects through audio recording and digital data transfer, a working knowledge of these processes has become essential for modern musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An educative focus on sound can be achieved\nthrough activities such as spectral analysis, deep listening activities and sound\nwalks, audio recording projects, and instrument making. In activities such as\nthese we can explore the sonic properties of sound objects, their placement in\nthe world around us, and their expressive potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Music and Perception<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Music is heard or imagined and has psychological and emotional features. Investigating how music is heard and understood has been an active area of research in recent decades, and the fields of music perception and neuroscience are providing many new insights into music and how we appreciate it. While music often exists as sound waves in the world, it also exists as experiences in the mind and body. Music is heard, interpreted, and has psychological and emotional dimensions. Musicianship studies have long acknowledged this and aural awareness plays a significant part in musicianship training as a result. There are many opportunities for embracing sonic perception and awareness as a basis for musicianship that embrace the ways in which our hearing and our brain interpret sonic and musical contexts. As well as a recognition of music elements like pitch and rhythm, studies in this area can include higher order properties such as expectation, closure, tension, release, texture, density, complexity, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Music can also be imagined (not simply heard) and\nthis highlights the relationship between the brain and music, which is an\nincreasingly popular topic. Having an understanding of hearing, perception,\nneurology, psychoacoustics, imagination, memory, acoustic ecology and so on can\ncontribute to a well-rounded music education. The relationship between externalised\nmusical sounds and inner hearing can be explored by students in a number of\nways; through aural analysis and other listening tasks, through the study of\ncompositional techniques that rely on perceptual effects like grouping, streaming\nand masking, or using synthesizers to recreate imagined sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Music and Gesture<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Music making is a holistic bodily experience and an activity that involves the coordination\nof bodily gestures and sounds. Just as\nunderstanding music as sound and thought are critical, so is developing an\nembodied understanding. The connection between gesture and music is obvious at\none level; sounds on instruments are largely generated and controlled through\nhuman gestures and musical understanding is importantly demonstrated through\naction. Embodied musicality is also relevant in less obvious situations like\naudiation practice where imaging yourself performing can assist motor skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The development of gestural performance\ncapabilities on musical instruments or through singing are traditional aspects\nof musicianship but, it should be noted, the definition of musical instrument\nperformance is continually extending, and these days includes practices like DJ\u2019s\nmanipulating turntables, game console control of music games, and live coding\non laptops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to instrumental performance and\nsinging, other activities where students achieve embodied musical experiences\ncan include conducting an ensemble, live mixing at an audio console, tapping\nrhythms, walking in time with a musical pulse, performing with a MIDI control\nsurface, or dancing to music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Music and Culture<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Music making and appreciation have important\nsocial and cultural dimensions. As well as involving personal experiences and\nexpression, music is often made in groups and appreciated at concerts and\nfestivals with others. Music plays various roles in celebrations, rituals and\nother community occasions. These roles vary between societies, communities and\nsubcultures. A well-rounded musicianship includes an awareness of music\u2019s\nsocial and cultural dimensions, and the skills to participate in, manage and\nlead these activities. A meaningful engagement with music is significantly\nenhanced by a solid understanding of the contextual conditions within which is\nit made and appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musicianship can include skills that don\u2019t\ndirectly relate to the making or appreciation of music as sound but are\nimportant to operating in society as an effective musician. These include\ninterpersonal, collaborative, leadership and entrepreneurial skills pertinent\nto particular musical settings. In addition, there are languages, notations, theoretical\nsystems and other technologies that are particular to each musical culture. In\nmusic education in Western cultures, as is dominant in Australia, there has been\na strong emphasis on fluency in notational and theoretical systems; in\nparticular, stave notation and tonal music theory. In other cultures, different\nsystems are privileged, and even in Western sub-cultures different emphases are\nevident. For example, Western popular music relies more heavily on aural\ncommunication than on notated communication and is heavily reliant on\nelectronic and digital technologies in its workflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Relevant\nMusical Skills<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking through these four areas of musicianship, we realise that there is a lot involved with being a musician, and this article has likely only scratched the surface. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons that music is so interesting and that musical lives can be so diverse and so rich. For the educator, this may seem overwhelming; raising an increasingly common problem of the \u2018crowded curriculum\u2019. How do we teach all this stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more pertinent question is; what of all this \u2018stuff\u2019 is relevant to teach in our context? Turning this around to the student\u2019s perspective, we might ask: What are the most relevant musicianship understandings and skills a student needs to develop given their interests and aspirations? Acknowledging that a person can\u2019t know everything or do everything, as educators we appreciate that curriculum design involves choices and priorities. There are many stakeholders involved in these choices and many ways of selecting among the options. Students would be empowered to assist in making the decisions about what they learn, in what order and how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The areas of musicianship outlined here\u2014sound,\nperception, embodiment and culture\u2014are designed to help guide educational\ndecisions. This framework helps us take a step back from our day-to-day musical\nactivities and avoid the trap of simply doing the things we\u2019ve always done. It\nprovides a perspective from which we can reconsider the priorities of our music\nprograms. From this perspective we can answer questions such as: What aspects\nof musicianship are or should be relevant? What activities will best lead to\ndeveloping them? A utility of this framework is how it can help us maintain a\nbalance between these four areas of musicianship. We need to avoid a\npreoccupation with, or neglect of, any one area of the framework. To do so would\nbe detrimental to a holistic music education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sound\nMusicianship Book<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ideas outlined in this article are explored in more detail in the book \u201cSound Musicianship: Understanding the crafts of music\u201d, edited by the author and published in hard back by Cambridge Scholars Publishing and in electronic form<\/a> by Exploding Art. The book contains thirty chapters that explore issues relating to the four areas outlined here and several educational case studies. Chapters are written by leading researchers and educators from around the world with a strong representation from Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Acknowledgments<\/strong><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This text was first published as Brown, Andrew R. 2013. \u201cWhat Is Musicianship and How Do You Teach It?\u201d Music Forum 19 (4): 44\u201345 and is based on the edited book: Brown, Andrew R. (Ed) 2012. Sound Musicianship: Understanding the Crafts of Music<\/em>. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (available online<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Author Biography<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrew R. Brown is a musician, educator, researcher, designer, software developer and author. His professional interests revolve around technologies that support creativity and learning. Andrew\u2019s creative activities focus on digital audio-visual works using generative processes and interactive musical performances with computers including live coding; visit http:\/\/andrewrbrown.net.au<\/a>. He is Professor of Digital Arts at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andrew R. Brown One of the great things about music is that it is multifaceted. It can be many things to many people, and you can spend a lifetime studying it but still not be …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explodingart.com\/arb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}