A Sound Reality : Understanding Music

Musical competence, the tacit knowledge a musician has about musical structure. An example could be constructed by playing a melody that implies a cadence, but either stops short of it, moves to an unexpected but “legal” note, or jumps to a totally unrelated note that could not possibly “belong” to the melody, given the expectations its previous behavior has set up. One’s knowledge about musical structure would dictate the response in each case as to whether the melody is well formed. Composers working with new musical material or forms are typically not understood, or are often misunderstood, by the public because of the latter’s unfamiliarity with the structural “rules” the composer is using to achieve meaning.

A listener might be frustrated if they can’t understand what they are hearing but it might become perfectly understandable later and become praised as revolutionary.