Why We Love Music

by Carl E. Seashore

The age of serious play. Youth is the age of serious play. Before this period the child has spontaneously played much and hard enough, but now youth enters into specialized sports, finds a play outlet in one or more of the arts, and with the play attitude takes up serious roles in social responsibilities. All these are comparatively new and are, therefore, entered on with fresh enthusiasm. Emotion has a way of burning itself up. Toward the end of the college course, youth, having had its fling, feels fed up on sports and after that may not even sit on the bleachers or the side lines. The same is true of many of the artistic outlets. When youth comes of age, the ventures into poetry, music, dramatics, and various other forms of art cool off for the majority. This loss of interest is especially noticeable in the social activities, in which the vocal arts, the dance, and other instruments of wooing play so large a role. It should, however, be said that the better our education, home life, and vocational activities are organized for right living, the less is the break at the beginning of this period of youth, as well as at the end.

The age of decision and eliminations. The persons exceptionally gifted in music are precocious in that their artistic awakening comes earlier, and yet the real assertion and the serious functioning of their musical inspirations appear most characteristically and pass through their crucial period in the teens, after which large numbers of those who have gone through the fire of struggle for survival and mastery pass out of the picture.

The educational age. Youth is the dominant educational period. Those who in this period qualify for higher education can and should continue their studies with organized effort and with confidence in success; but, on account of the American popular demand for higher and higher education, many of those who should be eliminated during this period float on, ill-motivated, ill-directed, floundering through college or professional education without regard to the worth-whileness of the procedure. Unfortunately American education has not made adequate provision for the diversifying of training, especially in the practical outlets at this age.

This educational dominance of the period of the teens is particularly true for music. Unfortunately, large numbers of youth naturally endowed with the power of enjoying music have not even been discovered up to this time, either by themselves or by others, and they may pass through this last stage of opportunity without being discovered and often without realizing what they are missing. At this age the prospective musician will begin to try himself out, will discover the necessity for untiring and well-directed work, will concentrate in the field of his most natural musical outlet, and will work hard in the face of the imminence of the decision as to success or failure in his own judgment, in the judgment of his teachers, and in the judgment of his companions and public. If successful here, he may continue his musical education in specialization, since music is essentially a body of skills. At the same time he may show a due regard for the necessity of a broadening education under larger horizons. Fortunate are they who follow these sound procedures.

However, many students overlook the fact that, if their music is to be an avocation, it is to be pursued merely for the pleasure inherent in it. They may struggle along simply because they have had initial training in this field, but without adequate motivation or anticipation of significant results. Achievement in music is an artistic performance, and we should not add recklessly to the large group in society who feel that their early efforts were wasted and who have to go through life apologizing for their failure or mediocrity in the artistic sense. At the same time we must bear in mind that satisfaction in musical performance for the great majority of persons comes from the pursuit of the cruder forms of music, especially singing. Group singing, ordinary piano accompaniment for singing, dance music, and ragtime of all sorts should not be discouraged in so far as they form a natural outlet for those who pursue them. After all, "high-brow" music plays a very small vital role even in high society.

Unfortunately, as in academic subjects, the real elimination of the unfit is not accomplished effectively, and there are masses of music students dribbling along with at best a low mediocrity as the destination in sight. Since music, to be of service in later life, must be either professional or eminently satisfying as an avocation after advanced work in the subject, the necessity of making discriminating and wise eliminations before a youth is of age cannot be stressed too strongly. A wise selection and guidance at this stage should, however, in no way discourage those who get a genuine satisfaction out of music and are wisely motivated, especially for the keeping of an avocational interest alive with a modest degree of attainment.

We must face the fact that most of those who are highly gifted in music and are deeply devoted to it will not enter the profession of music and may be engaged in such exacting occupations as to limit the time that they can devote, avocationally, to their favorite art. Yet of all the lovers of music, these are perhaps the ones who get the greatest enjoyment out of music and contribute most happily to the musical life of the community.

It is not sufficient to get children started in musical education. They must also be motivated and given the outlets for self-expression which tend to have lasting value in their lives. A drab picture is drawn by comparing the number of those who, through high school, have had the privilege of good training with the number of those in the best social groups of our cities today who actually contribute, and take pleasure in contributing, to the musical life of the community and to their own personal moments of leisure. Here is a challenge to adult education: a challenge to find and encourage self-expression in music in adult life. Nevertheless, a strong argument can be made for musical education even if it functions only during the period of adolescence.

The age of leisure. Youth is, in a sense, the age of leisure. We think of a gentleman of leisure as a person who, by virtue of his being a gentleman, is active in pursuits which are not necessary for the earning of his bread and butter. If he is not active, he is not a gentleman. If his activity does not add to a genuine enrichment of his own life and the life of the community, he is not a gentleman. If he does not know how to play, he is not a gentleman. The same ideas apply in principle to the concept of a lady of leisure. The adolescent youth has many of the characteristics and the opportunities of a gentleman of leisure. These opportunities do not mean an easy life, but a life characterized especially by the freedom to do just the things that he likes to do. These opportunities include, for many happily adjusted personalities, the development of the art of loafing: the substitution for mere sitting, for mere gossiping, for mere eating and drinking, and for degrading pastimes, an active life of restful, satisfying, wholesome self-expression in the play attitude.

The high-school or beginning college student is not, as a rule, working for a livelihood, is not held down to the specific demands of a trade, a business, or a profession. He is in a period of preliminary skirmishes, and the public school programs provide liberally for these. He may spend his leisure time in the strenuous work of athletics or of any intellectual, artistic, or social pursuit lying outside the demands of the curriculum; he has time for such excursions.