... and how do I *know* it when I hear it? [advance length and possible use of brain warning]
This is something I thought of when I was reading a text for one of my classes and another student asked me "well, what do you mean by Detroit techno" when we were talking about music (he told me he likes techno). I had to think for a while of how to answer. I realized it's something I took for granted and wasn't used to explaining it. I thought to myself, well it's not just the instruments, or where it's made, or who it's made by, it's more than that (to me) ... After using lots of adjectives and descriptive stories, I knew it would be best to have him listen to it, to experience some of it. Then he would know, too. It was good example of the breakdown/grey area between tacit and explicit knowledge. I thought it might be something of interest to people on this list. Here's the section that had me thinking about this:
--from "Tacit Knowledge in Organizations" by Phillipe Baumard, Ch. 2, Tormented Knowledge (LOL - chapter title goes good with recent discussions on this list)
"This investigation of puzzled organizations is also the construction of a theory in response to my own puzzlement at how to wrestle with ambiguity and how to mobilize knowledge - and what knowledge at what moment? - in order to counter disorientation. What was our perception of light before we discovered that it is at once a wave and a particle in motion? A mysterious phenomenon for some, but symbolic and/or religious for others.
Whereas some could find no satisfactory explanation for it, to others it was entirely explicable. It was a polemic subject, as was 'sound' and 'noise': while some will perceive in the music of Boulez only an agglomeration of 'noise', others, whose ear is perhaps more initiated to this form of expression, will discern a sequence of 'sounds', they will hear 'phrasing' and 'music'. Some writers, the more determinist, will advance the hypotheseis that these people possess a 'musical intelligence'. They will even go so far as to suggest that there are multiple intelligences: spatial intelligence ('the ability to form a mental model of a space and to be able to maneuver and operate using this model'); linguistic intelligence (of poets); logical intelligence (and they will not hesitate to accuse Piaget of having studied only this); kinetic intelligence (that 'of dancers, athletes and surgeons'); and interpersonal intelligence (or 'the aptitude to understand others: what motivates them, how they work, and how to work with them') (Gardner, 1993). This theory is definitely disturbing. Although we recognize the interest of introducing the notion of intellectual plurality, we can only be disquieted by the suggestion of superior discrimination that is seems to introduce in the area of the arts.
Defenders of this new theory waste no time in contradicting it elsewhere. To introduce 'musical intelligence' Gardner quotes the following example:
From when he was three years old, Yehudi Menuhin was always discreetly introduced by his parents into the concerts of the San Francisco Orchestra. The sound of Louis Persinger's violin filled the young child so much that he insisted on having a violin for his birthday, and Louis Persinger as his teacher. He got both. Before he was ten years old, Menuhin was performing on the international scene. (1993: 17)
And the author concludes: 'the musical intelligence of the violinist Yehundi Menuhin was manifest even before he had touched a violin or received any music lessons. His powerful reaction to this particular sound and his rapid progress with the instrument suggests that he had been biologically prepared for this destiny.' Putting aside the questionable Darwinian implications of gracing violin aptitude with a genetic code - which will not fail to shock those who have invested tens of years in learning the instrument - the contradiction is evident. If the violin produces a 'sound' and not a 'noise' to the ear of the young Yehundi, this is simply because he has learnt its language at an age when one learns to speak. That he is attracted by the instrument is no more surprising: it is difficult to abandon a second mother tongue."
So I wondered (between giggling at the parallels here to the concept of IDM) if people here think it's possible to convey "what is Detroit techno" to another person *without* actually having them listen to some of the music? My feeling at the moment is that it really has to be experienced to be understood/known. Then the other person could learn the language of 'Detroit techno' for themselves and perhaps create their own meaning(s) of it. :)
Thoughts? Lisa
