The Importance Of Musical Knowledge?

In the beginning of senior grade, my IB Music teacher told us that he tries to compose orchestral music pieces which everyone can understand or at least interpret in a certain way even to those who has minimal musical knowledge. (Dr.Schmidt) Evidently, it is an intricate process my IB teacher has to struggle through to compose such pieces. He stated that the process of composing a piece involves the mixture of ways of knowing and also requires high musical intellect. People may gain knowledge by obtaining facts, information, and skills through experience or education. (Oxford) Does math only use reason to gain knowledge? Does history only use memory? Does religion only use faith? In some areas of knowledge, they may only use one or possibly

Musical knowledge is abstract but concrete at the same time. People may assume that great depth of musical knowledge is required to be a great musician. however, unlike other different areas of knowledge, music may require some talent with the addition of great depth of musical knowledge to be a great musician. In the example of chords, it is nearly impossible to memorize all types of different chords. In just C diminished chords, there are C diminished, C complete diminished, C half diminished, C diminished 7th, C diminished 8th, C diminished 9th and so on. In the case of great musicians, they use intuition to use diverse chords in their performances without thinking what chords they are playing. However, is it possible to measure intuition? In the example of Jazz players, as they are experts at improvisation, they have background knowledge about which scale they are playing on, which notes fit in a certain scale and which chord progression sounds harmonious to the melody. Hence, Jazz musicians may use reason, such as using harmonious chord progression and melodious melody lines to create tuneful piece, behind their intuitive action on their performances. Some jazz musicians perhaps argue that improvisation purely

Reason used in composition is more than a composer using a minor key to represent a sad tone or a major key to represent a happy tone. In the example of “Petite Messe Solennelle” by Gioachino Rossini, which is the last mass Rossini wrote before he died, he may had supported his theme of humor by subverting the idea of a typical classical music conventions. With the eventual realization of his impending death, he wanted to surprise and discomfort the audience by overthrowing the norms in musical composition. He used dynamics such as “pppp” which means to play extremely quiet and “ffff” which means to play extremely loud, to poke fun of the limited ability on instruments. In addition, Rossini played prelude towards the end to poke fun of the musical norm. Therefore, Rossini learned to use reason such as the process of dismantling audience’s expectation and mix it with his emotion to express certain type of idea. Consequently, to gain knowledge in conveying an idea in compositions. musician may require the mix of reason and