Why We Love Music

by Carl E. Seashore

Again we must remember that the musical mind is first of all a normal mind, a normal psychophysical organism ready to begin to function immediately after birth. What we shall look for then in a psychophysical organism is the presence of certain resources especially favorable or especially unfavorable to the normal functioning of the musical mind. We may assume that an average capacity present in the genetic constitution may be adequate for musical purposes but that exceptionally gifted persons require these traits in a correspondingly exceptional degree and that exceptionally unmusical individuals lack essential elements. The most wonderful thing is that a person can come into the world with a musical constitution at all, but the problem of heredity centers around individual differences, and these are more easily approachable than the total function. As in genetic studies of the inheritance of color blindness it has been possible to identify types, so in musical hearing we may look forward to the identification of types of defect and types of superiority deviating markedly from the normal.

Common observation and reasoning convince us without question that musicality is inherited in some mysterious way and this follows also from general considerations of current theories of biological inheritance. But when it comes to the scientific determination of laws of such inheritance, we face high barriers. Biological laws of inheritance must be established in terms of the genes; a specific biological structure or function must be related to gene organization. Let us call this measurement of the first order. Such measurements are most readily applied to anatomical structure and physiological function in the neuro-muscular organism. This is notably clear in the anatomy and physiology of the ear and its connections. It is equally applicable to the anatomy and physiology of the vocal organs—the bellows, the vibrators and the resonators for voice. It is conceivable, for example, that the length, the mass, the mode of attachment, and the general position and shape of the vocal cords and the mounting of the voice box are heritable characters traceable to genes and referable to musicality as the physical organs for voice.

We can also find relationships to the endocrines, which are in large part the determinants of musical emotionality. Electro-physiology is now giving great promise for the identification of functions in the ear and the brain and its central connections and is establishing interrelationships. Many of the laws of heredity established by measurements of this order probably refer to fundamental biological principles of inheritance in the psychophysical organism as a whole. By a physiological analysis of the sensory, motor, and central factors which operate most significantly in music, the systematist can set up a respectable body of biological facts in regard to musical inheritance which are antecedently probable in terms of the functions of genes and result in the structure and function of the musical organism.

Since the medium of music is sound, we shall look first for an exceptionally responsive or unresponsive ear, including not only the physical ear but the central organs in the nervous system through which it functions. This is basic for two reasons: First, because it determines what stimulation from the world of sound shall enter into the experience of the musical individual to a high degree; and second, because the purely physiological receptivity or organic response to sound acts upon and modifies the state of well-being or ill-being according as the auditory impression is beneficent or noxious in so far as its acts upon our circulation, metabolism, temperature and other organic processes. Such well-being or ill-being is, of course, in part the foundation for the feeling of musical pleasures and pains.

If we would gain a true and comprehensive insight into the nature and extent of role of environment in musical life, we must start with some established facts or reasonable assumptions of what is "given" for environment to act upon. The heritage is the capital fund which the environment invests or squanders. Only by knowing the hereditary contributions can we appraise the environmental contributions. In the study of the fruit fly, for example, the revelations of factors which must be regarded as environmental are quite as significant and essential as the revelations about the original organization of genes. The determination of the limits of heredity is the best means for revealing the functions and possibilities of environment. The music geneticist will therefore learn fully as much about environmental influences as he will about hereditary influences in studying heredity.

PSYCHOPHYSICAL MEASUREMENTS

The music geneticist can approach many significant aspects of the subject through psychophysical experiments for which we now have fairly standardized procedures. For the present purpose, we may call this measurement of the second order as compared with the anatomical and physiological measurements. It proceeds out of, and is a complement to, the anatomical and physiological foundations and probably represents the most fundamental approach from the psychological and musical points of view. These measurements deal primarily with sensitivity and discrimination on the sensory side and the corresponding processes on the motor side. Among them we may recognize two levels: The simple or elemental, in which a specific mental process is related to a relatively specific organic basis; and the complex, which relates to co-operative functions of the elemental capacities. Of the former we have four; namely, the sense of pitch, the sense of loudness, the sense of time, and the sense of timbre—each of which is correlated with a specific attribute of the sound wave, which is the musical medium. We have basic measurements of the hearing of rhythm, consonance, volume, and sonance—all of which represent relatively complex patterns. Each of these complex functions has a unitary character. Rhythm, for example, is not merely time plus intensity; it possesses a unitary character. Because of the difficulty of dealing with the complex patterns, precedence should be given to the four elemental or basic capacities. Excellence in these capacities contributes toward ear-mindedness, of which the auditory image is the most specific characteristic; but at the present time we have no adequate objective method for the measuring of auditory imagery.

On the motor side we have corresponding measurements of speed and accuracy in the motor control of each of these factors represented in the sound wave; namely, frequency, amplitude, duration, and form.

The term elemental should be used with caution because we never encounter a purely elemental state or process. Even in the very simplest form they are merely more or less specific phases of the mental organism; and at any level at which they are observable they probably involve environmental accretions. It is the old story: We never experience pure sensation but meaningful perception. Yet under the most careful experimental control the identification of such specific functions may be reasonably reliable and have considerable validity.

Adequate measurements of the sense of timbre are new and therefore have not been employed extensively up to date. But the sense of pitch, the sense of time, and the sense of loudness, together with the sense of rhythm and immediate tonal memory, have been used extensively.