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.