THE MUSICAL TEMPERAMENT
What makes a musician temperamental? Tell a musician he is
temperamental, and he will take offense. Yet perhaps the thing in his
personality of which he is most proud is the possession of a musical
temperament. This characteristic inconsistency has a basis in
psychological fact; namely, that the exhibition of artistic temperament
frequently leads to attitudes and actions which the rest of the world
may criticize and view with amusement; but, on the other hand, the
finest expressions of musicianship would perhaps be impossible without
the possession of an artistic temperament.
Many persons who pass as musicians are neither temperamental nor
musical. A great many of those who ply the art of music do not have
musical minds in any basic sense. Their art consists in certain skills
often built into a purely matter-of-fact organism. I therefore see no
reason why such people in the musical world who do not show any artistic
temperament have any reason to boast of the fact.
The highly temperamental musician is a species of genius in some degree.
As such, he has been described by musicians, scientists, and
psychiatrists in a very copious body of literature on the subject,
especially that dating since the time of Lombroso, who regarded all
geniuses as degenerates. The modern psychiatrist has frequently
presented a picturesque view of the temperamental person in terms of the
rising science and art of psychiatry, which is supposed to explain all
deviations from normal behavior in terms of psychopathology. The old
saying was that we are all more or less sane; the psychiatrist today
says we are all more or less psychopathic. The current literature on
mental hygiene is characterized by this point of view. Another point of
view has proved fascinating since the coming in of Freud, in that
deviations of this sort are accounted for in terms of suppressions,
defense reactions, and other manifestations of the libido. Much light is
thrown on the problem by the great musician's exaltation of the artistic
mind in action, thus revealing essential temperamental traits on the
basis of first-hand experience and artistic theory. A temperamental
musician is the most merciless portrayer of his own species. Since the
temperamental person is always an interesting person, all of these
accounts are lively and each revealing from its own point of view,
giving us much genuine insight into the nature of the temperamental
person in all fields.
Descriptions of the musical temperament are, as a rule, vivacious and
luminous, thrillingly interesting. If a competent analyst would follow
Stokowski for one day during the season and picture in high lights, full
of concrete examples, the experience and behavior of this great
conductor from the whirl of emotional enthusiasms and conflicts into
which he awakens in the morning to the convivial abandon during
refreshments after the evening performance, we should have a spicy and
animated picture of the musical temperament. If written by the smart
commentator in the columns of _Esquire_, it might even be racy. Such
pictures have often been drawn in fragments. A similar picture might be
made exclusively by direct quotation from biographies, autobiographies,
and letters of great musicians, such as Beethoven and Wagner, whose
lives are now on record. The temperamental musician is not competent to
analyze himself because he does not see himself as others see him.
Literary chats about musicians are full of quirks and eccentricities
giving realistic examples of a temperamental life. These might be
organized into a fairly complete characterization of a distinctive
musical temperament.
All such exhibits would be of the emotional type, dramatic
extravaganzas, interesting and significant, and there are many such
extant. The inceptive science of the psychology of music takes a
different point of view, aiming to account for the highly temperamental
person partly in terms of heredity and partly in terms of inherent
elements in the situation in which he lives and performs. The music
psychologist must content himself to deal in a cold analytical way with
verifiable and orderly facts in order to contribute something toward a
scientific foundation for a systematic and functional psychology of the
musical mind. In attempting this approach, I realize how tame and
stilted such an effort must seem to the fiery musical temperament; and
even at its best the psychologist will regard the account as
speculative, because it is seldom based upon experiment. I have delved
into musical biography and autobiography of great musicians with an eye
toward the discovery of their outstanding mental characteristics from a
psychological point of view. On this basis I must make a bold venture by
attempting to trace the elements in a musical situation which lead to
the development of temperamental behavior and thus contribute toward the
answer to the question, "What makes a musician temperamental?"
_Physiological irritability._ The highly-gifted musician responds
physiologically to sound stimuli to a very high degree because he has
inherited a genetic constitution which is anatomically and
physiologically exceptionally responsive to sound. In other words, quite
apart from consciousness of sound or thought of music, his physical
organism responds to acoustic stimuli of all kinds which keep nerve and
muscle in a state of tension. This tends to create a state of unrest and
irritability. Without leading to actual hearing, it may arouse
associations of a sort of dreamlike or dramatic nature which may play a
very large role in the conscious life. It may create a state of
well-being and happy associations, but perhaps more frequently
irritation and noxious day-dreaming associations and emotional
eruptions. The sounds may come from a squeaking chair, the sizzling of a
kettle, the song of a bird, the cry of an infant. Most frequently sounds
affecting the organism in this way are inconspicuous and commonplace in
the environment; but they may often be strong; such as, the rattling of
a train or the chattering in a crowd, of which the musician does not
become conscious, although physiologically irritated.
_Tonal sensitivity._ All great musicians are highly sensitive to sound
in all its elements. A physiological irritability acoustically leads to
a profuse awareness of sounds. This sensitive and selective hearing
gives the musician a richness of material in the musical medium. He
becomes intolerant and rebellious to disturbing sound stimuli which have
no such effect upon unmusical persons. To him, the world of sounds has
infinite richness of resources for musical pleasure, but equally
exceptional resources for the suffering of musical pain.
_Artistic license._ To the trained musical individual sounds are heard
as different from what a matter-of-fact listener hears. The hearing of
pitch, loudness, time, and timbre is not in the ratio of 1:1 with the
physical sound, but always runs into artistic analysis and
interpretation with artistic license. The musical interval, the dynamic
phrasing, the rhythm, and the tone quality are always heard in relation
to their artistic setting. Here we find auditory illusions operating in
their fullest glory. The pitch value varies with the quality of the
sound. Time may be a substitute for stress and vice versa. A subjective
rhythm is richer and far more realistic than the physical rhythm. The
quality of tone is heard in relation to its musical meaning. To the
musician, the hearing is not so much a question of true pitch, formal
accent, temporal rhythm, or vowel quality as it is a matter of musical
balance and a recognition of artistic deviation from the true.
Meticulously exact performance of a Bach score would be musically
intolerable. Notes are frail symbols. The performer must interpret even
the shortest measure rhythm or single note value. Thus, while fine
sensory discrimination in all the aspects of sound is essential for
correct hearing and tone production, the more essential thing is his
ability to play with artistic power and impulse in hearing and producing
artistic balance and artistic deviation from the rigid. In this artistic
balance and deviation, he may be guided by certain artistic rules, but
his direct emotional interpretation is far more significant. In this
lies individuality. He is constantly tempted to be extravagant.
Thus, in all the variants, combinations, and modulations of pitch,
loudness, time, and timbre, the musician hears, feels, and gives meaning
to fine and subtle distinctions, many of them quite divergent from the
physical tones. At this level, temperament shows itself in exceedingly
fine responsiveness to tones which may be a matter of utter indifference
or impossibility to the unmusical. This capacity is largely inborn, both
in the way of sensitivity to sound and a general nervous, if not
neurotic, disposition, and is in itself enough to make the musician
different from other people. Artistic license as a medium for
self-expression is, therefore, clear evidence of a musical temperament.
_Ear-mindedness._ The successful musician is ear-minded as distinguished
from the painter who is fundamentally eye-minded. This ear-mindedness
grows out of his genetic auditory constitution at birth and develops
through the practical use that he makes of the various attributes of
sounds. Fundamentally, it is the tonal image which, in the great
musicians, is practically as vivid, stable, and complete as the ordinary
perception of the actual physical sound. His memories, his imagination,
his creative work practically all operate in terms of his powerful
auditory image, usually supplemented by strong motor and visual imagery.
This makes him different from the businessman, the objective scientist,
and the man on the street. The fact that he can live subjectively in
this tonal world gives him a type of isolation in which he feels the
superiority of his power and becomes disposed to assert his rights,
privileges, and dominance in a domain in large part separated from
ordinary affairs. Thus, the powerful imagery becomes one of his richest
and most fundamental resources for exclusiveness as a musician and, when
cultivated in the field of artistry, tends to set him apart from the
rest of the world.
_Affective response._ Since the business of the musician is to hear and
produce beautiful effects in sound, he differs from the ordinary
listener in that sounds of all kinds not only have intellectual
orientation value but are habitually responded to in terms of beauty or
ugliness, pleasure or pain. They give him warmth or chills, both of
which create feelings of unrest. Instead of identifying a sound as the
rumbling of a train, he identifies it as ugly--something which disturbs
and irritates him. Instead of identifying the sound as the song of a
bird, he responds vigorously in terms of likes and dislikes.
Emotional pursuits are usually sexually stimulating, and persistent
emotionality is likely to manifest itself in love "scenes", good or bad.
As a mate, the temperamental musician may be a most ardent and exquisite
lover or a most irritable person to live with. This is aggravated by the
fact that the artistic behavior is worshipped by the opposite sex, often
to an annoying degree. Hence, love, self-defense in love, and a sense of
superiority in love are keynotes to the temperamental musician's life.
_The esthetic mood._ The musician is in search of the beautiful and
therefore, conversely, responds unfavorably to the ugly. His
professional life is, in the main, emotional as distinguished from the
intellectual life of the scholar in other fields or the action-patterns
of men of affairs. Whether he is a virtuoso, a creator of music, or a
director, he is working on emotions through emotions, trying to
re-create for the listener the feelings with which he himself is imbued.
He lives so intensely and habitually in this activity that he becomes
recognized as highly and persistently emotional. This extreme
emotionality in his daily work sets him off against the matter-of-fact
mind. We say of the intensely artistic person in action that he burns
himself up. The emotional life is expensive and flitting; it flashes and
explodes and is in danger of running out of control.
This emotionality tends to transfer not only to other forms of art but
to ordinary things and situations; such as, money, raiment, or social
amenities. Sometimes this takes the form of the characteristic bohemian.
He may spend his wages on payday and starve the rest of the month in
utter complacence. All his life tends to be set at high tension. He
lives dominantly in a mood and therefore often becomes objectionally
moody through his impulsive behavior.
_Exhibitionism._ There is an accretion to the musical temperament in a
sort of hierarchy of defense reactions which may be characterized as
exhibitionism. The musical mind is pulling on one end of a leash, as it
were, trying to drag the more or less resistant and incapable into his
own beautiful emotional life, and he feels the drag. Therefore, he
becomes impatient and uses ways and means of exclusiveness in withdrawal
from the world, or he takes the opposite attack--display. To him,
countless means of personal display justify their end, the glorifying of
his noble art. Therefore, we see the musical temperament in this
artistic form in the manner of living, eating, dressing, and sleeping,
and in the demand for hero worship. We see this in the extreme form in
the conductor who feels that he must have his choir, his orchestra, his
band members each individually at his command. He is like a general in
action. For this purpose, he must pose as a great authority, as a hero
standing for something superior in the way of personal interpretation,
as a critical judge of the beautiful, as having undisputed power,
feeling the necessity of imposing his own emotional individuality on a
comparatively cool and often resistant group. This is true on a smaller
scale in all musical leadership, composition, performance of the
virtuoso, musical criticism and passionate listening.
_Symbolism._ The main function of the great musician is to make his
music symbolic. He must take the listener out of the humdrum attitudes
of life through the avenue of musical feeling into a state of abandon,
which, in its extreme form, approaches ecstasy and obliviousness to
material surroundings and facts. Even the devices of program music give
but remote and stilted aid. His function is to enable the listener to
live the art as he himself lives it symbolically. In this respect he
differs from the sculptor and the painter who, while cultivating this
symbolic attitude, are clearly held to the necessity of utilizing
objective realities. It is not easy for the musician to take himself out
of this mood. At the moment that he talks shop and business, the
symbolizing habit is constantly pressing in upon him. Through his
mastery of the symbolic life he feels rich, exclusive, powerful, and
self-contained. Some people think that is queer.
_Precocity._ Since, as a rule, the musically gifted are proportionately
precocious, they begin early in childhood to realize their peculiar gift
for musical appreciation, individual interpretation, and often fabulous
child performance as more or less child prodigies. This tendency to
become a prodigy is inherent in musical precocity and starting early
makes him conspicuous as a child, interferes with his adaptation to the
behavior of the common man, and leads to a specialization and
intensification of those elements which gain for him the approbation of
his constituency, a following for the hero, and towering admiration. On
the other hand, it makes him an object of ridicule.
Usually it is the narrowly-educated musician that is strikingly
temperamental. To excel in his art, supreme effort has often centered
upon that goal at the sacrifice of a broadening education and the
development of a well-rounded and healthy-minded personality. Current
academic recognition of music and improved facilities for training will
decrease the number of temperamental musicians. After all, temperament
is not all a gift: it is largely acquired through learning in the school
of hard knocks. It is often a cheap imitation.
What then is the musical temperament? It is a species of the artistic
behavior found in all artistic pursuits, arising partly from heredity
and partly from training, environment, and simulation; intensified by
high sensitivity, highly-strung disposition, dominant ear-mindedness,
emotional strain, lopsided education, pursuit of esthetic goals,
leadership and hero worship, and often a forced precocity.
This type of analysis could be carried much farther, but these items may
suffice as fair samples to show that the artistic temperament in music
is an essential gift demanded by the nature of the art. It may be good
or bad, inborn or cultivated, genuine or simulated, and often runs into
eccentricities so that we frequently view it in a superior attitude of
amusement. But let us thank all the gods in the Kingdom of the Muses for
their great gift, the potentially good musical temperament.
THOUGHT REVIEW
General Principles
(1) The musical temperament may be good or bad.
(2) It is inherent in the intensive music situation.
(3) The musical temperament generally has a hereditary basis in a
highly-strung nervous disposition.
(4) It has large common elements with the artistic temperament of the
painter and the poet, but is more eruptive.
(5) It is often of strategic advantage in musical performance.
(6) In many respects it is a defense reaction.
(7) It may be either extrovert or introvert.
(8) It is most fascinating when artistic and serenely serious; most
ludicrous when affected; and most abominable when it takes the
form of tantrums and exhibitionism.
Consider These Questions
(1) Can you name ten musicians who exhibit a "charming" musical
temperament?
(2) Can you name ten musicians who exhibit a "noxious" musical
temperament?
(3) Can you recall ten practical jokes which exemplify temperamental
behavior, good or bad?
(4) What are some of the first evidences of temperamental behavior in
the musically precocious child?
(5) Should the musical temperament in a child be cultivated?
(6) Why is the current music supervisor rarely temperamental?
(7) Was long hair a temperamental trait?
(8) Is temperamental behavior proportionate to excellence in music?
Discuss This Situation
When the director of the professional symphony orchestra faces a group
of temperamentally hardened performers in rehearsal it is war to the
finish--victory or defeat. Recall some characteristic historical
instances of artistic strategy in such a situation.