The Know-how of Musical Performance

Musicians make music; that is, the performance of music involves applied knowledge or know-how. Can we attain a discursive understanding of what the musician does, and does the attempt to achieve this put at risk the very art it aims to capture? In other words, what can be said of the nature of performance and does what we say turn a living practice into a dead object? In this discussion, I aim to clarify the issues in terms of which these questions can be developed.

Consider acquired practical knowledge or'knowing how.'¹ It involves a learned skill or capacity to do something-typically, to perform an action-as in "I know how to ride a unicycle."² 'Knowing how'can be subdivided into types. A first variety is always conscious. For most people, mental arithmetic is of this kind. It is not mental arithmetic they are doing if they do not follow an appropriate rule, algorithm, procedure, or principle, even if they fluke the right answer. Many practical skills are of this sort. I know how to fill in tax forms, immigration documents, and hire purchase agreements. In all these cases, the working of the skill and the steps through which it is exercised are held inevitably before my mind. A second type of 'knowing how' might be termed "retrievable." I know how to drive a car. Most of the time, I am not aware of the processes, judgments, and procedures that are involved. I do not have to think about my driving as I drive. Nevertheless, if I reflect on what I do, I can describe the steps or routines I go through. A third type of 'knowing how' is cognitively impenetrable. Cognitively impenetrable processes are opaque to introspection. Some bit of neurological hardware receives an input, processes it, and outputs some result, but the nature of that processing is not retrievable by consciousness. The skill is learned but the many computational, muscular, kinaesthetic, or other activities involved in the skill's application or execution are not available to the agent's awareness. From my own case, typical examples are of knowing how to walk, how to pick up a glass, and how to speak English.³ When a person intends to perform an action of this kind, he aims at it directly, as it were. He intends to turn his skateboard to the left, say, not to flex this muscle here and so. He can intend to produce a certain action as output, but the intermediate steps and movements involved in this, to the extent that they are controlled in an irretrievable fashion, are not what he can intend. Similarly, where 'knowing how' is retrievable but automatic, the action is intended directly. The intermediary steps and movements are not what are intended so long as the action remains automatic.

In what ways is practical knowledge acquired? In some cases it can be learned from verbal descriptions of the appropriate basic actions and their sequences-"put the left leg in and shake it all about"-or of the relevant rules or algorithms-"multiply by π r² ." In others, learning is by example, copying, or experimenting. Some procedures work better for some skills than others. Generally speaking, when we encourage children and stroke victims to walk we do not provide them with examples. By contrast, language skills are often conveyed via paradigm instances. And while it is possible to learn to drive a plane from an instruction manual alone, one is more likely to be successful by following and being assisted by an instructor. Always conscious skills are often acquired by memorizing the procedure or rule that must be kept in mind, whereas automatic but retrievable skills, because their application is unconscious, are usually acquired through physical repetition until the routine becomes unthinking. Nevertheless, even cognitively impenetrable skills might be learned by first following written instructions. What makes the skill impenetrable is not the method by which it is acquired but the inability to recall or describe the relevant steps, rules, or procedures when the skill is entrenched.⁴

A given skill might be cognitively impenetrable for...