The cultural knowledge that you have about music is your knowledge about how the music fits into culture and society. Who would play a piece of music? When and where would they play it, and how would they be dressed? What are the reasons and the rules for playing this kind of music? Who would listen to it, and how would you expect them to react?

If you are not a musician yourself, you may find the cultural aspects of musical performances to be among the most interesting, as well as the easiest for you to learn about. Even if you are most interested in the music for its own sake, separate from the people who create it, you will find that cultural aspects of the music have important effects on the music itself. For example, songs for dancing usually have a strong and regular beat, and popular songs tend to have a slightly-repetitive refrain that is easy to recognize and remember.

Even if you believe you have no knowledge about music at all, you almost certainly have some cultural knowledge about the music traditions around you. For example, if you know what month "Silent Night" should be played, why the audience claps in the middle of live jazz performances, how to dress for a Beethoven concert, or where to go if you want to dance on Saturday night, that is cultural knowledge about music.

Musicians often refer to aural knowledge as "ear." In many traditions, musicians "play by ear," learning everything they need to know about the music simply by listening carefully and learning how to reproduce what they hear. "Ear" can also refer to the ability to distinguish whether a performance is correct, for example, whether a note is the correct pitch, played in tune with good tone quality and accurate rhythm and style. "Ear" can also refer to recognizing information about the piece, such as the style, genre, instruments used, chord progression, meter, and key, simply by listening to it. Musicians who have music literacy skills, as well as a highly developed ear, can accurately write down a piece of music they have just heard.

Even if you have had no formal ear training, your ear is almost certainly trained to "understand" familiar music; you have trained it just by listening regularly to your favorite music. If you can tell when a piece is being played out of tune, or with wrong notes and rhythms, that is aural knowledge. It is also "ear" that tells you that you are listening to the beginning of the second verse of a song, or that a recording was interrupted rather than reaching its proper end.

Like any other literacy, music literacy refers to how well you can read and write in this medium. Formal music education in common practice traditions tend to focus on music literacy; many other traditions focus instead on ear training but may include written forms as practice aids. How useful music literacy is to you will depend on what you want to do. For example, if you want to play Western classical music, literacy will be necessary. If you want to play popular music it would be useful but maybe not necessary. If you want to play folk music, literacy may not even be particularly useful.

Common notation is the most widely used way to write down music. However, there are many other kinds of music notation and "shorthand"-type ways to write down music that you may find useful. Some (for example, figured bass) are most useful within particular music traditions, while others (for example, tablature) are most useful when playing particular instruments. (See How to Read Music if you are not certain what kind of music-reading to pursue.)

If you have tried at all to follow written forms of music, you may be more literate than you realize. For example, If you cannot read a D seventh chord written in common notation, but you know what to play when you see "D7" written above a staff, that is a kind of music literacy. If you learned long ago how to read music notation but have not practiced since then, you may still know a lot of useful information (for example, what a note or rest looks like).

You can play a piece of music beautifully with no formal theoretical knowledge about music, just as you can add, subtract, and multiply accurately without any formal theoretical knowledge about math. However, at higher levels of math, instruction focuses more and more on the general principles that underlie mathematics and the ways that different types of math problems are related to each other (for example, the ways that subtraction and multiplication are related to addition). The better you understand those general principles and relationships, the easier it is for you to deal with math problems you've never seen before.

In a similar way, music theory is a type of knowledge that lets you think and talk about the way different pieces of music are related to each other and the underlying principles that tie them all together. Music theory helps you think about how to tackle "new problems" (for example, composing a new piece of music) in two ways: (1) it gives you the tools to analyze what other musicians have done and to see how their solutions are similar to, and different from, each other; and (2) it provides a vocabulary for discussing these kinds of problems with other musicians.

There are many different music traditions around the world. Since these traditions have different "rules" for creating music that makes sense and is pleasing, they also have different music theories. For example, harmony tends to be the most complex aspect of Western classical pieces, so Western music theory tends to focus on harmony. Indian classical music, on the other hand, is more complex in terms of tuning, mode, and rhythm, so its music theory focuses more on those issues. Concepts and vocabulary also vary from one tradition to another: the concept of key signature is useful in discussing Western music, for example, whereas in Indian music, the concept of raga is more useful. In some music traditions, music theory is very formal, including many books and dictionaries on the subject. In other traditions, it is more informal, centered on the terms and concepts that musicians use when they talk to each other about their art.

Even if you have never studied music, you may understand many of the basic terms and concepts that are used to describe the music that you like. For example, even if you have trouble defining them, you may understand what is meant when people talk about notes, rests, beats, rhythms, chords, harmony, verses, bass lines, or melody.

You do many, many things each day without consciously thinking about how to do them, for example, walking, talking, and eating. Your brain and body take care of them "automatically" so that you can pay attention to more difficult or interesting things. But if you watch very young children try to walk, talk, and eat, it is clear that you weren't born knowing how to do these things. They are automatic because you have done them so many times.

There are probably other things that you have done so many times that you can now do them without conscious effort, but you can still remember the time when you had to concentrate to do them correctly: riding a bicycle, perhaps, or driving a car, hitting a tennis ball, using your computer keyboard, or finding your way around town. These kinds of well-practiced knowledge, which allow your body to do what is wanted without consciously thinking about how to do it, are called embodied knowledge.

You can have embodied knowledge about music, too. Perhaps you have practiced playing an instrument so often that you no longer have to think about fingerings and you adjust your tuning automatically; perhaps you have danced in a particular style so often that you can do the basic steps without thinking about them. Embodied knowledge about music is useful because it frees your conscious mind to think about the more interesting aspects of the music. If you don't have to think about fingerings and tuning, you can concentrate on delivering the style and emotion of the music. If you don't have to think about basic dance steps, you can think about adding flourishes and variations.

Even if you have had no formal music training, you very likely have some embodied knowledge of music. Most people have a "feel the beat" knowledge that lets them clap, snap fingers, sway, nod, tap toes, walk, march, or dance "in time" with familiar kinds of music. Many people also have embodied singing skills that let them sing, alone or with others, with the correct rhythms and pitches. Although an inability to do this is sometimes called a "tin ear," the problem is usually a lack of practice singing (embodied knowledge) as much as a lack of ear training.

The questions you will be exploring in this inquiry are:

For each type of music you have chosen, find a recording of a piece that you feel is typical of that type of music. For each of these pieces, listen to the piece and do your best to answer all of the questions in the list below. It's a pretty long list, and you will be answering it three times and then making notes about your answers, so you may want to print out three copies of the list (here is a PDF) and write the answers in single words or short phrases. (For example, the answer to "what do the musicians wear" might be "tuxes" or "torn jeans and t-shirts.") Use standard terms when you can, but your own descriptions are also fine. (For example, you might describe the rhythm as "salsa groove," "syncopated," or "6/8 time,", but "like a march," "fast and smooth," or "unpredictable" are also good.) If you have no answer at all to the question, write a question mark instead of an answer.

Figure 1

As the last step of your investigation, look at each answer that is marked with a star or check mark, and try to remember how, where, or from whom you learned it. Write down a short note next to the star or check mark listing where the knowledge came from: for example "piano lessons," "reading," "school choir," "dance hall," "friends," or "Dad."

Study the sets of answers on the three sheets. Look for patterns, connections, and themes. For example, does most of your knowledge come from one or two sources? Are you more confident about knowledge from a particular source? Can you group the questions that you could not answer into two or three categories? Are there types of knowledge that seem to be your strong points or weak points right now? Are the patterns the same or different on the three sheets? What you want to create is a way to organize this information so that it says something about you as a musician and music learner.

Create a single chart, diagram, map, outline, or sketch that shows the patterns, groups, connections, or themes that you are discovering. It may take you several tries to figure out how to arrange the information so that it clearly shows the patterns, groups and connections. Simply trying to arrange the information will help you think about it, so try out different arrangements or different types of charts or diagrams until you have something that you think clearly shows something about you as a music learner.

If you are doing this inquiry as part of a group or class, show your chart/diagram to the group. Explain what you think it shows about you as a music learner. Look and listen carefully to other people's presentations, and ask questions when you notice anything that is interesting, surprising, or unclear. After everyone has made their presentations, compare the various patterns and connections that were found and discuss the likely reasons for similarities and differences.

If you are not part of an inquiry group, try to find a way to discuss what you have discovered about yourself with someone who would be interested. One good way to interest people is to ask questions about the things that you don't know and gather advice, rather than talking about what you do know. For example, your music teacher might want to know that you feel your "ear" is not as advanced as your music-reading; or a friend might admit to having similar questions and suggest that you go to a concert together to try to learn more.