Musical Understanding
Q1.
Musicing and listening processes are considered embodied and enactive because they are interdependent in musical understanding. The two aspects are critical interactive dimensions as musical thinking and knowing (MTK) is concerned, thus shaping musicianship and listenership. Both of them involve a set of eight open MTK categories related to each of the categories. Therefore, a person who is listening and musicing simultaneously experiences a dynamic interaction of activities involved in music-making, such as performance, improvisation, composing, arrangement, and conducting. Additionally, a person who is musicing allows for the interweaving and interrelation of all MTK types in both musicianship and listenership. According to various explanations, the two processes are embodied, enactive actions that incorporate every other personhood process.
Q2.
The metacognitive MTK entails the disposition that allows monitoring, adjustment, overseeing, balancing, and managing a person’s development of their musical understanding. The verbal concept provides details on how instruments are played and how to listen to specific music. At the same time, the ethical aspect relates to critical reflection on music concerning social, cultural, economic, and political issues or interests. Experiential MTK relates to the knowledge developed by people who understand actions within particular domains. On the other hand, intuitive MTK is concerned with the non-verbal capacity to acquire conscious insight and awareness without reason or observation. Situated MTK is concerned with relationships among people sharing a common activity, tools, and environment while appreciative thinking and knowing involves overcoming challenges by seeing them as opportunities instead of barriers.
Q3.
Musicianship and listenership are both considered context-specific because they allow the formation of various musical understandings that influence performance, creation, and expression. These involve different types of musical products that are praxis-specific, including performances, composition, and arrangements. Subsequently, the products enable the positioning of various musical concepts and the overall nature of music. The two concepts are context-specific. They allow musical understanding to empower and influence people in variable or multidimensional ways, depending on how a piece of music is perceived and interpreted. Therefore, people have the freedom to listen and construct their desired musical meanings, which also vary depending on contextual details, which shape the values and dimensions of a piece of music.
Q5.
Producing sounds and performing music differ in terms of the activities involved in each of them. Producing sound involves using instruments, music technologies, and human voice to make a musical expression. On the other hand, performing music entails numerous activities, including making key judgments in the process. Performance has a specific set of predetermined steps that also integrate movement sequences. Unlike producing sounds, the performance of music involves reflecting and making judgments while in action based on heuristic understandings, which require not only deductive but also inductive thinking. Therefore, performance requires various MTK forms and engages a person’s system more in terms of attention, emotion, memory, and awareness.
Q7.
One of the practical principles that can be applied in developing musicianship and listenership is the teacher-learning context. It asserts that the development of musical understanding is more effective through engaging actively in making music and listening in deliberately created situations, which estimate salient conditions of valid praxes. Another principle of developing the two concepts is target surplus attention, which is based on cognitive science and psychology. It suggests that learners can achieve knowledge by putting in moderate effort while marinating repeated attempts. However, advancement from novice level to higher expertise and proficiency, there is a need to focus their surplus attention on specific areas for the advancement of their musical thinking.