IX. CAN MUSICAL CAPACITY BE INCREASED BY EDUCATION?
Musical sensitivity is inborn, and probably cannot be increased in any respect by training. If the various elements are not present in amount and combination suitable for a given degree of achievement in music, no course of training will supply the lack. This is not to say that ultimate achievement, for those who do possess capacity, does not depend on training. Achievement depends upon both training and capacity, but the latter cannot be supplied except by hereditary endowment.
The question of improvement through education becomes especially important in a case where the psychograph is excellent, but for one element. Much depends, of course, upon what the inferior element is, and the degree of the inferiority, as to whether the person will be able to succeed in a given musical career.
Inferiorities that appear in capacity for musical action are possibly much more susceptible to improvement by training than are inferiorities of sensitivity.
For example, there are persons whose psychographs show excellent musical talent, except that they falter from the pitch in singing. The voice may be excellent in range, quality, and volume, yet with a falter in control which leads to “flatting” or “sharping.” This is a defect in musical action, an inaccuracy of movement.
It has long been known that the control of movement is brought about not only through the kinæsthetic sensations, but through aid from the other special senses as well. Vision is a first rate aid to the acquisition of motor control. It is a more efficient aid than hearing, because much finer differences can be detected by vision. The problem, then, in an endeavor to improve by training those who “flat” or “sharp,” is to devise some method whereby visual aid may be administered to control.
Such a method has been found in the tonoscope, an instrument which registers visually every pitch movement of vocal chords, or other sounding body. Practicing with the tonoscope, the musician can see what his errors are, and learn what motor reaction will bring correction. The control of the eye is thus introduced into practice, as it is in tennis, writing, or other form of precise motor learning. Singers of all degrees of talent show improvement in pitch after practice with this instrument, and the improvement continues after the instrument has been laid aside. The gain made with the help of the eye remains in motor control, just as once having learned to write by aid of the eye, we can easily write in the dark or with eyes closed.
The susceptibility to improvement in other forms of musical action has not been shown experimentally, this whole field being practically unstudied as yet by experimental method.