Why We Love Music

by Carl E. Seashore

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[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.