Towards a relational model of musical knowledge: Findings from a Belfast-based case study

Abstract

This article reports on a case study involving 44 adults based in Belfast, Northern Ireland for the research project Bridging Musical Knowledge. Data were gathered via project website creation and an online survey carried out during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Developing an interdisciplinary epistemic framework that draws on theory from music education, ethnomusicology and musicology in conjunction with the analysis of qualitative data, it finds two major tendencies across multiple perceptions/experiences of musical knowledge as reported by participants: first, to value formal and practical aspects in the attainment of musical knowledge, and second, to consider familial, communal and other sociocultural contexts as central to musical knowledge development. Interpreting a dialectical tension between reified and experiential accounts as reflective of historically embedded distinctions, the authors propose a relational model of musical knowledge, encompassing comparative conceptions of music theory and discourse.