Why We Love Music

The psychology of music and the psychology of the child are giving us new vital conceptions of the nature and role of music in child life. To understand this fully is to understand adequately the nature of the child mind and the nature of music.

From smile to music. All mental development begins with some inherited form of behavior and gradually differentiates into richer and richer meanings and forms of expression. The taproot of all music is the smile. This in its first appearance is a pure reflex, expressing the well-being of the organism.

Observe some typical steps in its history in high lights. When the infant has had its fill from its mother's breast, its head falls back and the mouth puckers as a result of withdrawal from the nipple. The mother looks at this and says to herself, "He is satisfied." The child has thus acquired one means of communication—the expression of well-being. This rapidly radiates into many situations. When the infant is patted on the back, is bathed, is rocked in the arms, or feels the waft of comfortable air, the same puckering of the mouth seems to convey to the mother a sign of well-being, and the meaning of this puckering is thus enriched.

It gradually radiates from the lips through more general expressions of comfort in the face as a whole, and we have a clearly developed smile. Gradually it becomes associated with sounds—inceptive gurgling, simple droning, light chatter, and other inceptive forms of vocalization, always accompanied with a smile, which thus develops new meanings, and mother and child acquire mutual understandings, because from the first the mother tends to respond sympathetically in like language.

As this association grows it takes the form of audible laughter which, at a comparatively high stage of development, becomes a "ha-ha-ha" with musical inflections. This is a form of language, still not expressing specific ideas, but the general attitudes of well-being, comfort, satisfaction of young life as a whole. The mother knows it, loves it, and responds accordingly; and this mother's response draws from the infant a growing hierarchy of new types of responses, meaning the same thing.

Gradually these infantile sounds develop inflections and modulations in pitch, in loudness, in rhythm, and in tone quality. These inflections are the beginning of beauty in voice, and each new conquest gives a new form of satisfaction to the child and mother.

The mother may stimulate natural forms for expression of mutual feeling by her own musical laughter. Gradually the playing with these sounds becomes an object in itself, the making of a particular sound for mere pleasure. This is the beginning of singing and the appreciation of musical sounds.

We observe the child playing with modulations in pitch, in loudness, in duration, and in different kinds of tone quality. This is the beginning of musical experiment, of musical creation, and musical appreciation in the child. Blessed is the mother who can appreciate the music thus born. She then sees the significance of the rhythmic patty-cake as music which gives pleasure to mother and child alike. She then begins to understand that the jingling of a bell is sweet music to the child. She can see how the appreciation of rhythm is gradually revealed through the progressive development of means of making sounds and hearing varieties of sound. Perhaps unconsciously she sets patterns for a musical inflection which the child begins to imitate. To the child, noise is music, and the discovery of noises and the mastery of various noises play an immensely rich and important role, even in the highest forms of adult music.

Thus, the recognition and feeling of pleasure in sounds, and the power to make agreeable sounds, reveal to the child an unfolding musical world. His whole organism responds to it. This is an element of musical feeling.

Let me digress for a moment to say that the beginnings of mental life tend to develop from two fundamental needs: attraction and repulsion, likes and dislikes, approaching and getting away from—these being respectively the positive and the negative aspects of adjustment. The smile is the sign of the positive side. The companion piece of the smile as a taproot is the frown, which gradually develops through crying and is the reciprocal of laughter. The history of the frown and crying is quite parallel to the history of the smile and laughter in mental evolution and in the development of the individual.

Music in play. While it does serve a purpose as language in social adjustment, the musical activity of the young child is expression for the love of expression itself. This play aspect early differentiates itself from the use of sounds to convey meaning in language.

The child composes, rapidly revealing new melodic progressions, new rhythms, new kinds of sounds, and new patterns in the durations of sounds for his own delight in self-expression. Through them he wins manifestations of appreciation from those around him who constitute his audience. He repeats each new achievement as the momentary goal of play until new patterns progressively take their place. In these actions of musical composition, the same mental faculties that we see in the active adult composers are at work, but limited to the child's natural level of successful achievement.

He early reveals command of the four elements of all music, as such; namely, pitch, loudness, time, and kind of tone or tone quality; and we observe the unfolding of melody, dynamic expression, rhythm, and richness of tone. Through these he imitates the sounds of nature, speech, music, and noises at his level in the surroundings. In terms of these he develops memories, indulges in fantasy and creative imagination, and gradually begins to think about music. These are the avenues through which the child expresses his needs and urges vocally or instrumentally; but they are music in so far as they are indulged in for the pleasure of the hearing or the making of the sounds themselves.

Note that the child composes by performing; therefore, each musical form that he develops is clearly at his command in performance. Notice also that the repetition of achievement is limited by the play attitude of always demanding something more difficult. Composition, performance, appreciation, body response form interlocking steps. That is what makes the procedure natural. The joy of conquest, characteristic of play, is the dominating motive. Here nature has her way in the development of knowledge, appreciation, and skills.

Musical activity is normally a form of play, expression for the satisfaction in the expression itself without ulterior motive, and this attitude may be carried through life. A person who cannot take a play attitude toward music perhaps has no music in him. The play attitude does not free one from effort, even systematic and arduous effort, in the acquisition of the art. Witness all the sports at all stages of growth. There is nothing to relieve us from understanding facts involved in music; but the driving motive is found in the play attitude, and the result is pleasure in play. On these observations of nature's ways in play, the future pedagogy of music will be built.

Environment. It is astonishing that the child is often treated as unmusical unless he can sing or play adult compositions or show an intelligent appreciation of high art forms. How pitiful it is for a mother to say that her child is not musical because he does not sing her songs and understand her artistic playing. How vastly could a mother's appreciation of the child be increased if she realized what constitutes music at his level and how fundamental the musical reactions at his level are to the development of music in the adult!

To be musical, the child must be musical in response to his environment. There are natural laws of evolution in the race and in the development of the individual for types of reactions to the music that abounds around us in nature and for the various means at our command of expression through imitation of them. To the primitive tribe, the drum is a powerful, thrilling musical instrument. So are all forms of drumming to the child. He imitates the whistling, tooting, rattling, banging sounds in his environment, sometimes until he becomes noisily tiresome. He feels in harmony with the clock that ticks, the birds that sing, the dog that barks, the cat that mews. He loves to bang on the piano and blow his horn.

This craving for pleasure in sounds radiates through the sense of rhythm into graceful movements, the beginnings of dancing and dramatic action, even from the crudest rhythmic kicking and tapping movements of the infant. His speech becomes rhythmic, melodic, dynamic, beautiful. His whole body becomes reverberant in response to the sounds of nature. Laughter progressively acquires new and beautiful forms. Even crying may give satisfaction of an artistic sort. The swinging of the pendulum of the old clock on the wall is music. The patter of rain, the splashing of water have musical elements.

The child does not think of the artistic forms as does the musician; but like the canary which, even if grown in isolation in a soundproof cage, in due time produces his natural tours in repertoire, the child instinctively comes out in melody, dynamic modulation, and rhythm. But all these are modified by the environment.

Music and speech. Speech has the same media as music; namely, pitch, loudness, time, and timbre which result in such musical forms as tonal and dynamic inflection, rhythm, articulation, and vowel quality. A child is, of course, not conscious of any of these as such, and yet, under favorable circumstances, will quickly develop beautiful speech, which means that it is well inflected, well modulated in loudness, beautifully rhythmic, rich and clear in vowel qualities. If the child has a good ear, instinctive liking for these aspects of speech will develop surprisingly early.

To give the child musical environment means therefore not only exposure to formal music but rather a motivation for hearing musically all sounds around him, for acting rhythmically, and feeling the rhythmic impulse in all forms of activity, for responding by imitation or other forms of appreciation to all sounds beautiful. These acquisitions naturally take the form of beautiful speech. Musical education in the nursery, therefore, comes most effectively through informal education toward beautiful speech.

The child becomes proficient in speech long before he becomes correspondingly proficient in musical performance and appreciation. It is therefore very important to recognize that music and speech employ the same medium; namely, sounds which vary in pitch, loudness, duration, and kind. The child reveals flexibility, richness, rhythm, and all other forms of meaningful inflection in speech earlier than he does in music. Indeed, by the time the child leaves the nursery, even at the age of five, his characteristic form and command of speech are fairly crystallized. The command of elements of beautiful speech is the first step in a beautiful singing voice.

Speech is an index to character, and the means for the development of character. Beautiful speech is musical speech. Genuinely beautiful speech is a revelation of beautiful character. Let the mother who worries about early piano or violin lessons first give thought to formal sympathetic cultivation of a beautiful speaking voice.

Unfortunately, the child's speech is very largely determined by imitation of those around him. How few mothers and fathers, how few teachers, how few older children have beautiful speech! The young child as a rule, therefore, encounters unfavorable speech environment. The civilized world is just awakening to the possibilities and significance of beautiful and effective speech.

Train the young child to the appreciation and development of power in beautiful and effective speech, and you will have laid the best foundations for musical appreciation and formal entrance upon musical training.

Musical talent. Children differ in musical talent, both in degree and in kind. One normal child may be twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred times as sensitive as another normal child in matters of time, in matters of pitch, in matters of loudness, and in matters of tone quality. The normal child may be very high in one of these four musical traits and low in another. Let me illustrate how these traits may be observed very early in a very highly musical child.

Playing with a little girl eleven months old, I noticed that she responded to the music over the radio. I put a simple two-step on the victrola, and she marked the time correctly by a free sympathetic swinging of the arms. I changed this to waltz time, and she picked up the rhythm. As she could not yet stand on her feet, I held her on all fours, and then she shimmied with her trunk. Was that child musical? I could give one positive answer. She had a splendid sense of rhythm and urge for rhythmic action. As I watched her in succeeding years, she very early developed original dances, and at the age of four gave delight in original "shawl dances." Her speech very early was beautifully inflected. Her speech was also very early characterized by fine and meaningful modulations in loudness for emphasis and meaning. She gave early evidence of power to imitate different sounds.

Of course, the less musical a child is by nature, the more difficult it is to find early evidences of this sort. We do not need measuring instruments so much as we need training of teachers and parents to an understanding of what constitutes musical capacities so that we can observe the child critically in his early natural responses. By the age of eight or ten these specific capacities will become more conspicuous, and at that age the competent psychologist in music can analyze and measure talents reliably.

Musical education. When and how should musical education begin? It should begin in the earliest infancy by giving the child a musical environment suitable to elicit his response. This means not simply the hearing of formal music, but, far more significantly, a sympathetic response to the child's natural vocal expressions at each level, even to the making of sounds of all kinds.

The child from the first needs a sympathetic audience. It is not so much how beautifully the mother sings as how sympathetically she responds to the beginning croonings of the infant; and this sympathetic enjoyment includes recognition and encouragement for the hearing of all sounds around, whether animate or inanimate. The mother's first task is to be a good listener.

The first elements of formal musical training should be devoted to speech. Ideally this would come most effectively through the child's opportunity for hearing and imitating the beautiful sounds and speech of those around him. Even if the mother and other associates cannot set the model for the child, they can do a great deal to further musical development by showing their appreciation of the instinctive outcroppings of the musical qualities of the child's speech.

During the first six years there should be no formal musical instruction; but, by the end of that period, the musical child should have gradually acquired a sense of appreciation for musical sounds, pleasure in self-expression in musical intonations, confidence in his ability to compose a tune, some proficiency in singing and good speech, and some degree of satisfaction in free playing with an instrument.

The principles here developed for early childhood have profound implications for later musical education. Let the emphasis lie upon the broadness of the meaning of music to the child, upon the child's learning by doing, at his natural level of successful achievement, and upon the utilization of natural motivation in place of formal instruction.

THOUGHT REVIEW^[C]

General Principles

(1)

Musical activity is always a form of play.

(2)

To be musical the child must be musical in response to his environment.

(3)

To the child noise is musical.

(4)

Musical education for the preschool child comes most effectively through formal education toward beautiful speech.

(5)

Musical education should begin in infancy by giving the child a musical environment suitable to elicit his response.

 

Do the above statements by the author modify your own theories in regard to the musical education of your children?

Questions to Consider

(1)

What may we be doing when we say to our husky two-year-old, "Oh, Johnny, don't make so much noise?"

(2)

Why is it that children so quickly lose their lovely childish intonations and inflections?

(3)

How does Doctor Seashore endeavor to help us recognize music in our children?

(4)

In our efforts to develop musical ability and response in the child, what errors do we, as adults, commit?

(5)

Is it ever too late for adults to cultivate a beautiful speaking voice?

(6)

Do you agree with Doctor Seashore that "genuinely beautiful speech is a revelation of beautiful character"?

(7)

What methods are you using with your young child to elicit musical responses? Are they in accord with Doctor Seashore's advice?

(8)

Do you think that the radio is helping to encourage musical speech?

(9)

What practical steps can the adults in the family take toward improving their own influence upon the child's musical development?

Discuss These True Situations

(1)

I listened to the droning voice of a mother reading to her small son. Would it be better for the mother to tell the story with animation?

(2)

Mrs. Brown is what is termed "high-strung." She has much to do with household duties. Her three toddlers ask many questions, over and over again. She finds herself speaking louder and louder with each repetition. What would you suggest? (In a similar situation a five-year-old said, "Mother, why don't you relax a little?" C. E. S.)

(3)

In the Black household the radio is on continuously. Is this helping the musical education of the older and younger children?

(4)

"I simply can't get Johnny to practice his music lessons unless I sit down with him and make him do it," says Mrs. Young, who voices the complaint of many ambitious parents. What would Doctor Seashore say?

(5)

A mother, musically talented, said to me, "I simply can't help my children at all with their music. I get frantically impatient with them."

(6)

In a crowded railroad station I was admiring a lovely looking woman who held an equally lovely looking child by the hand. Then she spoke to the woman sitting next to me and it was with great effort I kept a look of consternation from appearing on my face. Her voice was harsh, metallic, unmodulated. Is it possible for her to help herself?