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Why We Love Music
BY
CARL E. SEASHORE
Professor of Psychology
and
Dean Emeritus of the Graduate College
The State University of Iowa
OLIVER DITSON COMPANY
THEODORE PRESSER CO., DISTRIBUTORS
BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA
Copyright MCMXLI by Oliver Ditson Company
International Copyright Secured
Printed in the United States
of America
PREFACE
The magazine, _Time_, commenting on my new book, _The Psychology of
Music_[A], spoke approvingly of the scientific contributions to music,
but gibed that, "psychologists have not explained why we love music." As
a reply to that I wrote a note, _Why Do We Love Music?_[B] This seemed
to call for a wider excursion implementing the views there taken, as in
the present Chapter I. That, in turn, led to the writing of the
remainder of this volume, in which each chapter deals with some of the
salient factors involved in the development of feeling for music.
These ventures digress from my habitual style of writing, as a technical
psychologist, in that I frequently indulge in generalizations and
predictions in a practical and popular vein. The attempt to interpret
and evaluate present tendencies in the region of forward movements in
music naturally takes me into unexplored territory and will stimulate
questioning on the part of promoters of various interest in the field. I
hold no brief for infallibility of the positions taken, except to say
that they are my convictions at the present moment. While they are not
direct reports of scientific experiments in the laboratory or the
studio, they may be regarded as an extension or interpretation based
upon scientific experiments and observations. It is hoped that they may
serve as hypotheses or at least a challenge for investigation and
practical trial. The reader must judge what is new and what is true from
his point of view. Many of the things I advocate are in an experimental
stage and in advance of current prevailing practice. This is the reason
for presenting them. My aim has been to tease out those elements in the
musical situation which help to make music function in our lives and be
appreciated.
The following chapters have appeared in magazines: Ch. I, _The Etude_
(brief summary); Ch. II, _The Parents' Magazine_; Ch. III, _National
Parent Teacher_, under the title, "On Their Musical Way"; Ch. IV, _The
School Review_; Ch. VI, _The Scientific Monthly_. For permission to
bring these chapters into this volume I herewith express my appreciation
to the publishers.
CARL E. SEASHORE,
Iowa City, Iowa,
March 1, 1940.
-----
Footnote A:
McGraw-Hill, 1938
Footnote B:
Music Educators Journal, Sept. 1938
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I Why Do We Love Music? 1
The Musical Medium 2
Organic response, 2; Sounds in themselves, 3;
Music proper, 3; Music with words and action,
3; Symbolism, 4.
The Musical Motives 4
Musical knowledge, 5; Musical feeling, 5;
Musical action, 6; Music as play, 7; Musical
imagination, 8; Who loves music?, 8.
Thought Review 10
II Music Before the Age of Six 12
From smile to music, 12; Music in play, 14;
Environment, 15; Music and speech, 16;
Musical talent, 17; Musical education, 18.
Thought Review 19
III Music Between the Ages of Six and Ten 21
A broadened conception of music, 22; The
analysis of talent, 23; Group instruction,
24; Formal lessons delayed, 25; A sympathetic
listener, 26; Music lovers vs. virtuosi, 27.
Thought Review 27
IV Music and Youth 29
Youth, The Age of Music 29
The emotional age, 29; The age of serious
play, 30; The age of decision and
eliminations, 30; The educational age, 30;
The age of leisure, 32.
Music For Youth 34
Music, an academic subject, 34; Orientation
in the grades, 35; Group activities in voice
and instrument, 35; Contests, 36; The hearing
of music, 37.
Thought Review 39
V The Musical Temperament 41
Physiological irritability, 43; Tonal
sensitivity, 43; Artistic license, 44;
Ear-mindedness, 45; Affective response, 45;
The esthetic mood, 46; Exhibitionism, 46;
Symbolism, 47; Precocity, 47.
Thought Review 48
VI Musical Inheritance 50
Essential Premises 50
Psychophysical Measurements 54
Thought Review 59
VII The Future of Musical Instruments 62
Possible Lines of Development 63
The improvement of existing instruments, 64;
New substitutes for existing instruments, 65;
New ensembles, 66.
New Music 67
Playing 69
Specifications for Instrument Construction 70
Pitch, 70; Loudness, 70; Time, 71; Timbre,
71.
Thought Review 72
VIII Praise and Blame in Music 74
Vantage Grounds 75
Artistic insight, 75; The scientific
attitude, 76; Terminology, 76; Musical
talent, 77.
Parties Concerned 77
The pupil, 77; The teacher, 78; The critic,
79; The public, 80.
Thought Review 81
Chapter I
WHY DO WE LOVE MUSIC?
Why does a person love his sweetheart, his food, his safety, his social
fellowship, his communion with nature, his God, approaches to the
ultimate goals of truth, goodness, and beauty? The answer to each of
these is a long story, involving not only common sense and scientific
observation but a profound intuitive insight, a self-revelation. In all,
it will be found that love is a favorable response, a reaching out for
the satisfaction of a fundamental human need, an effort to secure
possession, and a willingness to give an equivalent, indeed a more or
less unconditional surrender.
In all efforts to describe and explain, we reach out for specific
reasons or at least rationalizations. Modern science has made great
strides in revealing and describing all sorts of reasons for such
emotional experience and behavior. The theory of the evolution of man,
the anthropological implementation of this in the history of the rise of
mankind, the psychology of the mental development of the individual, the
comparison of this with animal behavior, and the inspired interpretation
of these motives in literature, especially biography, autobiography, and
poetry, are sources to be drawn upon. We have the adage that the
explanation of one blade of grass involves the explanation of all the
forces of nature. This aphorism certainly applies in the attempt to
explain any particular human love.
It is therefore evident that any attempt to account for a specific
affection, such as the love of music, must be fractionated, placing
responsibility in turn upon the scientist, the artist, and the
self-revelation of the inspired music lover at each culture level. It
has become the recognized function of the psychology of music to
integrate the contributions from all scientific sources, such as
anatomy, physiology, anthropology, acoustics, mental hygiene, and logic,
in their bearings upon the hearing of music, the appreciation of music,
musical skills, theories, and influences. To account for the emotional
power of music, the psychologist must consider the taproots of the
artistic nature of the individual in relation to the nature of the art
object, music. He must trace the unfolding of the organism as a whole
from inherited reflexes, instincts, urges, drives, and capacities in an
integrated pattern; he must consider the function of the art in human
economy and especially the goals attained by the pursuit of the art. In
this task there is room for intricate specializations and division of
labor. It is my purpose here to present merely a rough skeletal outline
of some of the outstanding features which underlie the love of music
from the psychological point of view.
Every impulse has two aspects: attraction and repulsion. All of us love
music in some degree; all of us hate some music; and most of us in the
economy of nature are comparatively indifferent and extravagantly
wasteful to the role that music might play in our lives. Hatred and
indifference to music are important realities in life worthy of serious
consideration; but our topic restricts us to the positive side of
musical response, the love of music.
THE MUSICAL MEDIUM
_Organic response._ Man is born with a psychophysical organism which
registers sounds and responds to them somewhat like a resonator, which
selects, amplifies and aids in the integration of auditory impressions.
Our whole organism responds to sound involving the central and
peripheral nervous system, all the muscles, all the internal organs, and
especially the automatic nervous system with its endocrines, which
furnish the triggers in the physical generation of emotion. Experiments
from various sources have shown that sound acts physiologically on
nervous control, circulation, digestion, metabolism, body temperature,
posture and balance, hunger and thirst, and in general, the groundwork
of pleasure and pain. The physical organism as a whole responds to
sounds in specialized functions.
Thus, man comes into the world tuned to music. The organism responds to
sounds from earliest infancy. Back of all conscious awareness, back of
all musical feeling, even back of subconscious assimilations and
elaborations is the purely physiological response which is a function
and a condition of well-being. This physiologically beneficent response
of the organism to sound underlies all musical experience; without it we
could not love music.
_Sounds in themselves._ Like colors, sounds may be beautiful in
themselves, quite apart from music. A single sound in nature or art is
capable of appearing in endless variety in terms of pitch, dynamic
value, duration, tone quality, and noise. It may be an object of beauty
in itself in thousands of ways quite apart from its utility in music or
musical perception. We find the tonal world in which we live full of
beautiful and useful sounds which we love because we are capable of
intellectual and emotional response to their beneficent influence. They
play a large role in our feelings of attraction and adjustment. They may
be beautiful to the untutored and intuitive mind as well as to the
intellectually and esthetically cultured mind in the same way that
flowers may seem beautiful to a child because they arouse an immediate
pleasurable feeling; and yet they are not music but merely the raw
material from which music is made. These raw materials from which the
musical structure is raised are themselves beautiful, quite apart from
musical experience or behavior. They play a large role in the love of
nature.
Thus, before the beginnings of music, primitive man responded
affectionately to the sounds of nature and was guided by them in his
daily life. Even before language took form, single sounds carried
meaning and gave satisfaction. Man took pleasure in his own vocal
utterances or mechanically produced sounds which played a large role in
his human economy and development.
_Music proper._ Sounds may be woven into beautiful patterns. This is
music. We admire the melodic progressions, the rhythmic patterns, the
harmonic structure, and the qualitative modulations in the flow of
beautiful sounds. Harmony, balance, symmetry, contrast and fusions
become embodied in musical form. Here the object of our affections is
the artistic creation. The place of the musician is quite analogous to
the astronomer's feeling of the sublime as he looks into the heavens in
the light of his knowledge of the nature and movement of heavenly
bodies.
_Music with words and action._ Much of the charm of music lies in its
association with words which carry the message, as in song. The center
of interest in much of the vocal art lies in the meaning conveyed by the
words where the music serves as an artistic embellishment. This is true
of the lullaby, the cowboy song, the lover's plea, and grand opera.
Likewise, much of the charm of music lies in its association with overt
action as in dances, work songs, marches, and games, where action is
rhythmic. This added power of the music lies not only in the dance steps
but more conspicuously in the suggestive rhythms divided into intricate
patterns often far surpassing the score or the physical performance.
That is what we mean when we say music carries. In such situations the
musical appeal may lie for one person in the verbal message or the overt
action and for another, purely in the musical appeal. Yet both words and
action on the one hand and music on the other are enriched through the
association.
_Symbolism._ Music finds its highest and most universal expression in
symbolism. Music is primarily a way of expressing moods, attitudes,
feelings, and longings in generalized form. The listener tends to live
himself concretely into the feeling suggested. In the esthetic mood he
is not aware of the mechanics of the symbolic suggestion, for which the
art has many resources, and he may not be aware of the music as such;
but he lives realistically within his own personal realm of interests.
Thus, music sounds the keynote on great festive occasions in the
powerful forms of festive music, as in the great sacred oratorios and
simpler but beautiful forms of church music or in triumphant marches and
other festive celebrations in major form. But minor forms, as in tone
poems and haunting melodies, work on the same principle and perhaps
fully as effectively. From the grandeur suggested by the sonata to the
serenity arising from the simplest bit of improvization in voice or
instrument, music has unlimited power to seize the individual for some
form of dreamlike realization of the subjects of his longings.
THE MUSICAL MOTIVES
What we are called upon to explain then in the attraction for musical
art is essentially the motives which drive man to the creation,
appreciation, and performance of music. One of these motives is the love
of knowledge as a thing in itself, the understanding of what is, and the
power of passing from vantage ground to vantage ground in the logical
creation, appreciation, and execution of art forms.
_Musical knowledge._ This love of music for its cognitive value can be
traced from the earliest musical achievements, as in the growing
acquaintance with song, sight reading, qualifications for participation
in music, and appreciation of art forms, throughout all stages in the
musical development of the individual up to that of the highest
interpreters and creators of music. While music is a play on our
feelings and appeals primarily to our emotional life, an intellectual
mastery of the process, the ability to understand artistic meanings, the
ability to construct beautiful art forms, the ability to analyze
elements in the power of music, the ability to see the relation between
musical art and other forms of art, and the ability to comprehend the
unity of all the arts, are basic in our love of music. Even in the cool
and logical pursuit of the science of music, foundations are laid for
the deepening of insight and the revelation of artistic values. Glimpses
into the vistas of unexplored resources intensify the admiration, the
feeling of awe, the glimpse into the infinite which is love of the
object pursued.
The role of intelligence in music is well illustrated in recent
experiments in which vocabulary was measured in three groups; namely,
ten nationally well-known composers, ten of the most successful students
in a large class in composition, and ten of the least successful
students in the same class. It was found that the master composers and
the successful students of composition ranked in or near the top in a
test of general vocabulary; whereas, the unsuccessful students ranked
near the bottom. Since knowledge of words is an index for the possession
of ideas, it is significant to note that successful composers are
persons who have a large and discriminating command of ideas.
_Musical feeling._ It must be recognized that the love of music is
essentially an unanalyzed feeling. Countless people feel the esthetic
appeal in music without understanding anything about it. It may be like
the notorious puppy love, which is frequently blind, but nevertheless a
deep love. This is particularly true in the earlier stages of the
development of musical interests. But it is occasionally in evidence in
the successful singer on the stage who may be blissfully ignorant of the
principles underlying his art, the media he seeks to mold, or the
significance of his message. There is much justification for the
performer's forgetting what little he knows and indulging in
self-expression in a state of abandon in which he deeply feels his
message and expects to convey this feeling to the listener.
We must distinguish between two attitudes in listening to music and in
the performance of music: the critically analytical and the purely
emotional. An intelligent musician is capable of both and loves both. In
the learning stages he pursues the former attitude primarily until
techniques are mastered and habits are formed which operate
automatically in the musical situation. This is also the dominant
attitude of the music critic. But in seeking the enjoyment of music and
in the unified expression of a thing beautiful, the musician takes the
other attitude. Paderewski would be hopelessly lost and ineffective if,
at the moment of performance, he should be consciously aware of all the
art forms of which he is master. The successful performance comes in an
inspirational attitude, the semi-ecstatic feeling of the beauty one
seeks to convey, a state of forgetfulness of self and concrete facts.
Thus music is a language of emotion. Through it the composer and the
performer convey their own emotions to the listener. It is a message and
a means of communication which enable the performer and the listener to
live for moments in the same tonal world of pleasure. Our muse is
jealous and seeks to exclude all intruders at the moment of her artistic
appeal.
_Musical action._ On a par with the intellectual and emotional approach
is the role of action in music. Consider for a moment the central place
of rhythm. The composer presents a hierarchy of rhythms: the measure
rhythm, the phrase rhythm, the sentence rhythm, the movement rhythm, all
moving into a unified beautiful artistic structure. The performer takes
this as a cue and adds or detracts, as the case may be, by his personal
interpretation. Modern psychology has shown that all musical listening
is action, a constructive response on the part of the listener.
All rhythm is primarily a projection of personality. My rhythm flows
from what I am. A large part of the pleasure in music comes from a
satisfaction in what rhythm does. Rhythm facilitates perception by
grouping; rhythm adjusts the stream of attention; rhythm gives a feeling
of balance; rhythm gives a feeling of freedom, luxury and expanse;
rhythm gives a feeling of power, it carries; rhythm, as in the dance,
stimulates and lulls, contradictory as this may seem; rhythm finds
resonance in the whole organism; rhythm arouses sustained and enriched
associations; rhythm reaches out in extraordinarily detailed complexity
with progressive mastery; the instinctive craving for experience in
rhythm results in play, which is free self-expression for the pleasure
of expression; rhythm plays not only with temporal but also with dynamic
and qualitative aspects of tone. Subjectively, rhythm in music is a play
within a play: The composer anticipates it, the performer gives the cue,
and the listener expresses himself in it.
_Music as play._ All art is play, and the charm of music, the purest
form of art, lies fundamentally in the fact that it furnishes a medium
of self-expression for the mere joy of expression and without ulterior
purpose. It becomes a companion in solitude, a medium through which we
can live with the rest of the world. Through it we express our love, our
fears, our sympathy, our aspirations, our feelings of fellowship, our
communion with the Divine in the spirit of freedom of action.
Note the fundamental characteristics of play and observe how in these
lies the power of attraction in music as play. Play gives a feeling of
self-realization; it is the experience of growth. It expresses the
racial life and in many respects is a reversion to type: It has been
said that we are all of the same age--millions of years. Play is a
realization of the sense of freedom; it attracts, engages and fascinates
by the very satisfaction which it engenders and which supports it; the
dance, when it is real play and not mere social labor or conformity,
carries the dancer in so far as he falls into a state of diffuse and
dreamy consciousness, intoxicated by the sense of pleasure, lulled by
the automatic rhythmic movements, and soothed by the melodious and
measured flow of music. Play gives satisfaction in the feeling of being
a cause, of having creative power. Play is essentially social and finds
its highest realization in good fellowship. Play is positive, an
expression of the joy of life. The unrestraint and spontaneity of play
result in strenuous and whole-hearted exertion; the seriousness of play
is one of its fascinations. Success in play lies in its fictitious
nature; it rests upon make believe; liberated from realities, it accepts
the ideal and lives it as real. In the possibility of playing with the
ideal lies a fundamental charm of music.
_Musical imagination._ Music is by no means limited to what is composed,
performed and listened to in the objective situation. Its main field of
operation lies beyond the sensory impressions and overt actions. Its
principal domain is the tonal world of memory, imagination, thought, and
pure feeling. Millions of people are today under the spell of _Over the
Rainbow_, as rendered in _The Wizard of Oz_, a simple, compelling thing
which takes possession of us in the dream, and in the humdrum of daily
activities; it lives within us realistically, quite apart from actual
sounds so long as it is novel. This is especially true of the higher
forms of art with all their intricacy and refinements in artistic form
which the trained musician can re-live or create. _Over the Rainbow_,
the expression of our freedom and self-realization in the spirit of
adventure, lies within the power of music.
_Who loves music?_ The love of music is not universal. Deep, warm, and
poised devotion to music is comparatively rare. Much of music is plain
work, sheer drudgery. Much is climbing toward a goal never to be
attained. Many who ply the art of music can hardly be said to love it in
the long run. There are aspiring artists who devote a lifetime to the
mastery of the skills, but become hypercritical and sour when they fail
to feel the esthetic glow or gain the command of public acclaim. Many an
aspiring amateur suffers a similar defeat. To the masses, music is but
fleeting incidents, occasional whiffs of the overflow from the wealth of
human appeals to a latent artistic nature. It is a notorious fact that
many who profess a love of music do not have it, but are mere pretenders
and imitators, conscious or unconscious, and that many who disavow it
are merely dying with all their music in them.
For such failures and inadequacies there are many possible explanations.
One of the impediments to the love of music is the absence of the
"gift", a naturally musical mind. In this there are enormous differences
in kind and degree. It follows that there will be corresponding
differences in the kind and degree of love for music. While music
springs spontaneously in the gifted child and youth, education is as
essential for music as it is for science or language. One might as well
attempt to acquire learning without study as to acquire music without
training. Then again, as is a person's intelligence, so is his music.
And creative imagination is a tool with which music is fashioned from
childhood to the heights of artistry. Furthermore, we must recognize
that for really expressive love and devotion to music we must look to
the often justly or unjustly maligned musical temperament.
Yet the company of music lovers is great. Music is the most universal
avocation. This has been true of all races throughout all times and at
all culture levels. Only a fraction of one per cent of persons who hear
music or practice it do so vocationally. We, the people, preserve it
primarily as an avocation, an activity purely for pleasure and cultural
enrichment. The love of music abounds at our time and in our country;
yet we are but at the beginnings of a dawning musical era. The increase
of leisure time, high educational level, and the astounding invention of
instruments for the production and transmission of musical sounds
forecast its rise.
Why then do we love music? Among other things we love it because it
creates a physiological well-being in our organism; it is built from
materials which are beautiful objects in themselves; it carries us
through the realms of creative imagination, thought, actions, and
feelings in limitless art forms; it is self-propelling through natural
impulses, such as rhythm; it is the language of emotion, a generator of
social fellowship; it takes us out of the humdrum of life and makes us
live in play with the ideal; it satisfies our cravings for intellectual
conquest, for isolation in the artistic attitude of emotion, and for
self-expression for the joy of expression.
THOUGHT REVIEW
General Principles
(1) Music is pursued primarily for the pleasure of the pursuit without
ulterior purpose.
(2) When music renders service, this service is essentially the giving
of pleasure.
(3) The depth and the quality of a person's affection for music vary
significantly with the degree and kind of musical inheritance.
(4) If the natural urge toward music is there, it will be readily
molded through training and facilitation of the environment.
(5) It is psychologically possible to present a natural history of the
origin and development of the love of music in terms of its
objects and motives.
(6) The inceptive psychology of musical experience and behavior can be
pursued in the laboratory and the studio through experiment and
measurement.
(7) There is a charm in knowing _that_ we love music but even more so,
_why_ and _how_.
(8) It is also worth knowing why some people _do_ not and others
_cannot_ love music.
Questions to Consider
(1) Is the play attitude in music opposed to hard work?
(2) Why is high intelligence essential to the composer?
(3) Can a moron love music genuinely?
(4) Is the musical temperament essential for the love of music?
(5) How can the adrenal glands affect the love of music?
(6) Is the love of rhythm primarily inherited or acquired?
(7) What hereditary factors may block the development of the love of
music?
(8) What factors in musical talent are most telling for the
development of the love of music?
(9) What educational motives are most effective as a means of
enhancement of the love of music?
(10) What is the nature of musical ecstasy?
Discuss These True Situations
(1) The typical "house" for the season's performance of the symphony
orchestra is arrayed in festive attire and poses in attentive and
festive mood. Make an estimate of the relative proportion of the
audience there (a) to see and be seen, (b) to perform a social
obligation, (c) to satisfy curiosity, (d) to learn something about
music, (e) to thoroughly enjoy the orchestral music.
(2) A primitive savage lives close to nature and observes sounds
produced by man and beast, by wind and sea. May he feel musical
affection for these sounds apart from their utility and apart from
knowledge of man-made music?
(3) In an aristocratic family there are four children, all manifestly
lacking in musical talent, but intelligent and co-operative in
education. They are all given excellent advantages of musical
education and environment and pursue them as a matter of course.
Are they likely to come into a warm love of music?
(4) It has been observed that when one listens to very beautiful music
he tends to swallow saliva by gulps, as the young lover does in a
state of infatuation; and that when he hears vile music, there is
a tendency to want to spit. In other words, there are two ways of
disposing of saliva under emotion: Attraction, indicated by
swallowing; and repulsion, indicated by feeling the need of
spitting. Can you verify that?