Types of Knowledge: Music is harder than Math

You can know OF something. You can know ABOUT something. You can know HOW TO do something.

There are a lot of things that I know of and know about, but do not know how to do. Example: I know OF the lydian scale. I could look it up and see how it is derived. Then I'd know ABOUT it. I could listen and realize that Steve Vai uses it frequently in his music. That's something else I could know ABOUT it. I could even learn how to play the scale on my guitar. However, for a musician, that's still just knowing ABOUT it.

When I was studying mathematics at the University of Arizona I took a Geometry Class. The "stuff" we covered in that class was very basic and fundamental...we (the students) already thought we knew those things. On day one the professor told us that we can, "Know Of, Know About, or Know How." We spent the semester fully exploring the differences between those things. To have a complete and balanced knowledge, the type required to be an expert, you need all three.

Well, for guitar, I don't really want to be an expert that can discuss complex things at their most basic and probing levels. That would take years upon years of learning ABOUT. However, it is my nature to often be satisfied knowing ABOUT something. My ego will color my perception and trick me into thinking I know HOW TO do that something. And the purpose of guitar is doing something, not talking about it!

To know HOW TO implies an ability, an action. That's what I really want! I want to be able to listen to music and know what I'm hearing (requires ABOUT knowledge), and be able to have some creative ideas that I can express, which requires the HOW TO knowledge.

What I have found is that when studying, for example, a jazz basics book, is this: The book spends much time on different fingerings for the major scale, or how to find all of the triads on the guitar, then all of the inversions. I do them a few times and I know it. But I know it as a mathematician knows how to find an integral after NOT doing one for years. I mean, I can figure it out. But it's NOT automatic.

Musicians need the automatic. They need to have the HOW TO knowledge on a muscle memory, reflexive level. That takes a lot of devotion and concentration. I sometimes find myself wandering when practicing the triads, especially since I don't know where I'm going with them (how I'll be using them).

So all of this has been written to share this one point: learning music is harder than math!