Page 116 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Orchestrating different forms of knowledge 105

which requires knowing how to use those categories in discursive contexts,
which includes knowing when to utter them. All of these types of knowledge
are logically interrelated. They are all constitutive of human conduct.

Furthermore, western contemporary art music requires conceptual thought.
Such conceptual thinking and the genuine musical making of a composition
are not disparate competences. Tore Nordenstam (1983: 85) expresses this
from a Wittgensteinian point of view: “Conceptual competence is internally
relatedtoactioncompetence.” Conceptual competence is decisive because it
enables a way of seeing things – a “knowing with” and a “hearing with”
(think also of a “hearing that” and a “hearing as”– see Broudy 1970; Schön
& Wiggins 1992; Davidson 1997). Conceptualisations form a framework
within which and through which composers think, without this framework
necessarily being present to them in each mental process (see Zembylas &
Dürr 2009: 123). This does not negate the relevance of practical sense and
experiential knowledge, but the how (the knowing how, the skilfulness)
cannot achieve anything on its own. Artistic performances are evaluated
contextually,makingthe what and why of actions equally significant in the
process of aesthetic appreciation (see Aubenque 1962/2007: 138f., 187;
Schatzki 2001: 50–53; Shove, Pantzar & Watson 2012). Artistic competence
must therefore be understood broadly. It is the ability to carry out an artistic
practice – in this case, composing – and to develop it further in a context-
specificmanner.
To summarise, we understand knowledge of work processes, situative
knowledge and somatic or somaesthetic knowing to be different forms of
artistic practical knowing. By analogy, we view scholarly knowledge, formal
technical knowledge and local knowledge as forms of formal propositional
knowledge. While this separation of forms of knowledge has served us well in
this section to establish an analytical order and explain the specifics of indi-
vidual forms of knowledge, it is obvious, in conclusion, that this separation
can only be maintained in part. In certain situations, practitioners and scho-
lars are primarily aware of one form of artistic practical knowing, pushing the
others into the background. When composing, as Figures 3.1 and 3.2 make
clear, all of these forms of knowledge must be considered in their varying
simultaneity and their mutual interdependences. Certain forms of knowledge
may appear to predominate in some activities. This predominance does not,
however, disempower the other forms of knowledge. They too are continually
present, and they too constitute artistic agency.

Notes

1 While Michael Polanyi (1958) introduced only a very loose differentiation between
active and passive modes of tacit knowledge, Harry Collins (2010: 85ff., 99ff.,
119ff.) distinguishes three kinds of tacit knowledge: relational, somatic and collective.
Mihály Szivós, who worked with us on this research project, identifies four types of