THOUGHT REVIEW
General Principles
(1) The question is not whether or not musical ability is inherited, but how it is inherited. (2) The musical heritage through each parent is transmitted through a single germ cell. (3) The mechanism of musical heredity lies in the organization of the genes in the twenty-four pairs of chromosomes found in this fertilized germ cell. (4) Scientific principles of musical inheritance can be established only through experiment and measurement of specific capacities; they cannot be derived from studies of musical achievement alone.
Consider These Questions
(1) What bad effects in education come from overemphasis of (a) heredity, (b) environment? (2) What educational advantages will accrue to the child from a sound and balanced recognition of the role of (a) heredity, (b) environment? (3) What would be the advantage of knowing scientific laws of musical inheritance? (4) What is new to you in the author's proposal? (5) Do you accept the author's theory of the relation between body and mind? (6) Why can we not derive laws of musical inheritance from statistical studies of musical achievement?
Discuss These Situations
(1) A music teacher says "Give me a normal child and I will guarantee to make him musical." What qualifications would you suggest? (2) A teacher has measured a child's sense of pitch and found it superior. Should she say "You are highly musical," or "You have a superior sense of pitch?" What is the difference? (3) An investigator has recently collected interesting material by interviewing (a) thirty-six of the outstanding musicians of the world, (b) the entire cast (thirty-six) of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and (c) fifty selected graduate students in the Juilliard School of Music, about their parents, and other blood relatives and has attempted to interpret the findings in terms of genes. Granting that his theory of genes is correct, what is it that limits or invalidates the procedure? (4) Long ago the author investigated the musical ability of three children in a minister's family and found that the oldest daughter rated very low on basic capacities and that she had not made satisfactory progress in eight years of musical training. The younger sister rated very high in musical capacities and had made splendid progress with but a few lessons. The brother, the youngest of the three, was like the younger sister. The minister held that where the great Creator had made the children unequal, it was his business to make them equal, and so he sent the eldest daughter to the New England Conservatory of Music where she was accepted and graduated and now holds a diploma, though, in her community, a musical nonentity. (5) Richard Bach Smith is a musical prodigy according to his mother. At the age of five he plays, sings, composes, and is an accomplished sight-reader. Is this heredity, environment, or both? How would you order his musical education? (6) Miss Jennie Lind Jones has a musical father and an unmusical mother, lives in a fine musical environment, and has enjoyed fourteen years of excellent training; but she "has no rhythm," her piano phrasing is "cold", and her music is a "drudgery." What do you predict for her? What would you have done for her? (7) Subject for debate: Given both, resolved, that inherited talent is a larger factor than musical education and environment in the development of a great musician.
Chapter VII
THE FUTURE OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Are we nearing the end of the "horse-and-buggy" stage of musical instruments? Can the possibilities for revolutionary procedures now looming up in the construction of musical instruments be as strategic for music as were the principles embodied in the coming of the automobile and the airplane for transportation? Those of us who remember that faithful animal and servant of man, the horse, and the conveyances he served, look back with fond appreciation upon what amounted to a sort of fellowship with a fine-performing animal and the luxury of being conveyed by him in saddle or on wheel. So future generations may look back upon the past in fond memories of the companionship they have enjoyed with their favorite instruments, which may be destined to a niche in the historical museum. But in spite of competition, the horse has survived, and so probably will the fiddle and some of its companion instruments.
It is now safe to predict that the future instrument maker will be able to produce any sound now known in nature or in art that may possibly have musical significance. We already have at hand the means by which any such sound can be adequately defined, described, specified, measured, analyzed, and reconstructed. And there is reason to think that with the conquest of new and marvelous resources for musical media, musical composition will move with strides in step with instrument building.
The musical devotee is, therefore, facing new issues, thrilling and possibly heart-rending. Can a musician adapt himself to these changes? Will he tolerate modifications of old instruments, radically new creations of instruments, revolutionary new types of ensembles, and radically new types of musical creation? Can musicians adapt themselves to these new musical media and musical forms as rapidly and completely as we have adapted ourselves to the transition from horse and buggy to automobile and airplane within the span of less than half a century? The answer is probably "no", for good reasons. Yet, sooner or later, the transition will come in the form of new musical media, new musical composition, and new types of musical appreciation and attachment.