As we can see, even if composers have studied composing, know the pitch range, the different possibilities to create sounds or the history of an instrument, their explicit knowledge is not always sufficient to realise their musical intentions in the composition. As another interviewee explained, he contacted a double bass player who would perform his composition to talk about possibilities and to get ideas, even though he played bass guitar himself. So the composer tried some things with the bass player, watched him play and asked him “[w]hat one can do, what one cannot do, and what he can do. And there I made notes and used some of them, others not. [. . .] The fingering is quite different on an electric bass guitar and a double bass. And because of that I knew that things I imagined on the bass are not so easy to do with the double bass.” This is an example of a transfer of knowledge from the musician to the composer, which the latter cannot learn from a book or any other medium of knowledge. Through years of training and rehearsing the musician has obtained a physical knowledge of his instrument on which the composer consciously relies in order to identify or solve potential problems through the expertise of the instrumentalist. Hence the instrumentalist serves as a creative partner who, to quote Michael Polanyi, brings in his “tacit knowing”.
Tacit knowing should not be confused with explicit knowledge (for example a composition theory), which is abstract (formalised), language-based (linguistic or sign language), saved in artefacts (written down in books), always available (regardless of time and place) and as matter of principle can be learned by everyone (as it is abstract, language-based and always cognitively available). On the contrary – as we can see from the example of the bass player – tacit knowing illustrates that an individual’s competency and agency is exclusively based on their practical experience. As it is physically embodied, tacit knowing is tied to the individual who has gone through a practical learning process. Tacit knowing therefore cannot be separated from the practitioner. Generally it is not possible to verbalise it directly – sometimes it can be expressed metaphorically. Rather it comes through in actions and needs to be demonstrated in order to facilitate communication about it, so it is described as tacit. Tacit knowing appears to be relevant in all areas of human activity – even the most intellectual ones. To quote Michael Polanyi again: all human activities include a “tacit dimension” (Polanyi 1966; cf. 1964: 144).
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Returning to the example of the composer and the bass player, we can see that the creative process is affected by the cooperation with musicians who provide the composer with their individual experience and tacit knowing, which cannot be substituted by the explicit knowledge obtained through an academic training in composing. Through such knowledge-transfers composers are constantly expanding their knowledge of instruments.
However, communicating with musicians to get inspiration or to develop the composition does not necessarily require a formal, contractual obligation. As one composer puts it, if he was not sure about an idea he would just double-check with instrumentalists he knew. “But they don’t primarily have to be the musicians who will be performing it.” Hence composers and musicians do not necessarily have to share the same object of work. Sometimes composers also search for an informal cooperation with musicians who may be friends or close colleagues with whom they have already worked for years.
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