What does it mean to "understand" music?

Question

I recently had a quarrel about modern piano arrangements of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach with a person who is a big fan of Glenn Gould, the Canadian piano artist who virtually made a career out of interpreting Bach on the piano. Somewhere along the way this person said something that, to my mind, sounded like one of those sweeping statements people make when they try to walk out of an argument with the false impression that they have "won:" he appeared to be suggesting that if one does not like the modern interpretations of Bach on the piano, one does not "understand" his music. This left me wondering as to the meaning of undestanding music. As far as I can see, it could mean a number of things, one of them being "to undestand what elements in a given piece of music appeal to one's taste." But it seems that what is meant by understanding here is something more specific, that there is something more objective that needs to be understood. What do you think this could be?

Answer 1

I think that's one of the best questions I've heard in a while.

I agree VERY much with your analogy about getting out of an argument, and I also agree that is EXACTLY what it comes across as. I think it could legitimately mean that one cannot appreciate what a musician was attempting to accomplish. Or sometimes, perhaps, I think a person must experience increased exposure to say a new ---to them--- genre of music, in order to develop an appreciation/understanding of it (as I had to do with James Brown and BeBop). But I think the phrase is more often than not used in exactly the manner you suspect. I'm a very eclectic professional musician and I make my living creating and working with an extremely varied lot of music. I can enjoy and appreciate some of anything. But I have no tolerance for academic types, or music "purists"/snobs that look down their nose at others, pat each other on the back, and immerse themselves in music that appeals to virtually nobody. I like music that can be reasonably popular.

Answer 2

hmmm, i always thought you "felt" music, not understood it. Maybe he's talking about tempo, or composition, which even a monkey could, but feeling music, feeling what the composer meant, that's a bit tougher.
I find music to be a lot like sex sometimes, you start slowly your way to culmination, have a plateau and then go back down, but hey, that's my appreciation.