Musical Perspectives on Psychological Research and Music Education
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- Psychology of music [ 0305-7356 ] ; 1987-10.
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Abstract
It is argued that psychological research in music tends to ignore musical matters. In modern Western culture music is prized for qualities of uniqueness and individualism, and musicians are regarded more for their giftedness than their training. In other cultures social acceptability is more important and everyone performs as an essential part of everyday life. Researchers into visual perception and visual art utilise art from any source aS base-lines or guides in their interpretation of children's drawings. In contrast, psychological researchers in music tend to be constrained by narrow definitions of music. It iS also argued that psychological research in mUsiC has resulted in musically undesirable applications in education. The basic point is that the musical inadequacy of such research stems from the applications, in scientific method, of rationalism and empiricism to a study of mUStC Music is a product of mans unique, intuitive and irrational imagination. The traditions of rationalism and empiricism and the artistic products of mans irrational imagination are in opposition. It is not possible, therefore, to promote understanding of the latter from the tenets of the former. This clearly calls into question the efficacy of relying solely on modes of rational enquiry and utilising models based on scientific empiricism in psychological research in music. Examples are cited to defend this viewpoint.
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DOI: 10.1177/0305735687152005
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In modern Western culture music is prized for qualities of uniqueness and individualism, and musicians are regarded more for their giftedness than their training. In other cultures social acceptability is more important and everyone performs as an essential part of everyday life. Researchers into visual perception and visual art utilise art from any source aS base-lines or guides in their interpretation of children's drawings. In contrast, psychological researchers in music tend to be constrained by narrow definitions of music. It iS also argued that psychological research in mUsiC has resulted in musically undesirable applications in education. The basic point is that the musical inadequacy of such research stems from the applications, in scientific method, of rationalism and empiricism to a study of mUStC Music is a product of mans unique, intuitive and irrational imagination. The traditions of rationalism and empiricism and the artistic products of mans irrational imagination are in opposition. It is not possible, therefore, to promote understanding of the latter from the tenets of the former. This clearly calls into question the efficacy of relying solely on modes of rational enquiry and utilising models based on scientific empiricism in psychological research in music. 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In other cultures social acceptability is more important and everyone performs as an essential part of everyday life. Researchers into visual perception and visual art utilise art from any source aS base-lines or guides in their interpretation of children's drawings. In contrast, psychological researchers in music tend to be constrained by narrow definitions of music. It iS also argued that psychological research in mUsiC has resulted in musically undesirable applications in education. The basic point is that the musical inadequacy of such research stems from the applications, in scientific method, of rationalism and empiricism to a study of mUStC Music is a product of mans unique, intuitive and irrational imagination. The traditions of rationalism and empiricism and the artistic products of mans irrational imagination are in opposition. It is not possible, therefore, to promote understanding of the latter from the tenets of the former. 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In modern Western culture music is prized for qualities of uniqueness and individualism, and musicians are regarded more for their giftedness than their training. In other cultures social acceptability is more important and everyone performs as an essential part of everyday life. Researchers into visual perception and visual art utilise art from any source aS base-lines or guides in their interpretation of children's drawings. In contrast, psychological researchers in music tend to be constrained by narrow definitions of music. It iS also argued that psychological research in mUsiC has resulted in musically undesirable applications in education. The basic point is that the musical inadequacy of such research stems from the applications, in scientific method, of rationalism and empiricism to a study of mUStC Music is a product of mans unique, intuitive and irrational imagination. The traditions of rationalism and empiricism and the artistic products of mans irrational imagination are in opposition. It is not possible, therefore, to promote understanding of the latter from the tenets of the former. This clearly calls into question the efficacy of relying solely on modes of rational enquiry and utilising models based on scientific empiricism in psychological research in music. 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In modern Western culture music is prized for qualities of uniqueness and individualism, and musicians are regarded more for their giftedness than their training. In other cultures social acceptability is more important and everyone performs as an essential part of everyday life. Researchers into visual perception and visual art utilise art from any source aS base-lines or guides in their interpretation of children's drawings. In contrast, psychological researchers in music tend to be constrained by narrow definitions of music. It iS also argued that psychological research in mUsiC has resulted in musically undesirable applications in education. The basic point is that the musical inadequacy of such research stems from the applications, in scientific method, of rationalism and empiricism to a study of mUStC Music is a product of mans unique, intuitive and irrational imagination. The traditions of rationalism and empiricism and the artistic products of mans irrational imagination are in opposition. It is not possible, therefore, to promote understanding of the latter from the tenets of the former. This clearly calls into question the efficacy of relying solely on modes of rational enquiry and utilising models based on scientific empiricism in psychological research in music. Examples are cited to defend this viewpoint.</p></abstract><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value>
Psychology of Music, c 1987 by the Society for Research in
1987, 15,167- 186 Psychology of Music and Music Education
Musical Perspectives on Psychological Research
and Music Education
ROBERT WALKER
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A IS6
It is argued that psychological research in music tends to ignore musical
matters. In modern Western culture music is prized for qualities of
uniqueness and individualism, and musicians are regarded more for their
giftedness than their training. In other cultures social acceptability is
more important and everyone performs as an essential part of everyday
life. Researchers into visual perception and visual art utilise art from any
source aS base-lines or guides in their interpretation of children's drawings.
In contrast, psychological researchers in music tend to be constrained by
narrow definitions of music. It iS also argued that psychological research in
mUsiC has resulted in musically undesirable applications in education. The
basic point is that the musical inadequacy of such research stems from the
applications, in scientific method, of rationalism and empiricism to a study
of mUStC Music is a product of mans unique, intuitive and irrational
imagination. The traditions of rationalism and empiricism and the artistic
products of mans irrational imagination are in opposition. It is not
possible, therefore, to promote understanding of the latter from the tenets
of the former. This clearly calls into question the efficacy of relying solely
on modes of rational enquiry and utilising models based on scientific
empiricism in psychological research in music. Examples are cited to
defend this viewpoint.
Sloboda (1986a) opened up an important debate concerning psychological
research, music and music education. Hargreaves (1986) responded with a
thoughtful and detailed explication of the importance of a developmental
approach to psychological research in music, and in this one gets a view
from the perspective of psychology. Unfortunately, all too rarely in the
journals which report such research is there a musical view presented of the
issues surrounding those things psychologists investigate in music. Pressing
(1986) expresses something of the frustrations felt by musicians towards
psychological research in music. In my opinion, the main issues can be
summarised in the following manner.
On a very general level, it is not clear that psychologists are researching
matters which are relevant or intrinsic to the domain of music. The criticism
is not of psychology, per se, but rather that psychological research methods
might yield results which contribute to a redefinition of knowledge about
music in such a way as to re-shape music effectively in those areas where
such research is applied. Empirical scientific knowledge exercises enormous
influence in the field of education. In which case psychological research
findings assume more than academic significance. The iise of a taxonomical
approach in educational curricula is currently very popular in schools, for
example, and derives its structures, procedures and content from psycho-
logical research. An objective of this paper is to remind psychological
researchers of the way musicians know music. Another is to demonstrate
svcoolog cA Research and Music Education
that there is evidence in culTrent educational practices in general music -
education that music is being redefined to suit the parameters of psychology.
It is argued that such redefinition can become misrepresentation, resulting in
mis-education.
One of the umain purposes of psychological research is to discover
universal laws governing human activity. Thus nomothetic approaches to
research are of great importance for psychologists. This is in direct contrast
to musical scholarship which relies on the idiographic approach.
There have, however, been a number of theories about music based on
nomothetic approaches throughout the history of Western civilization, wlhich
have generally proved to be of limited value musically. The secularisation of
nmodem Western society has resulted, mtusically, in the growth of concepts
of "uniqueness",- "individuality", and "giftedness" as prized musical
attributes. 1t is not clear that psychological researchers in music are either
sufficiently cognizant of this, or convinced of its relevance to research. The
development of Western musical practices has been from a pre-occupation
with '"A Qtjtgpdition" from mnedieval times (see Sanders, 1980), rather
than style, to highly individualistic, stylistic composition in
modem society Musicians believe this has had profouLnd effects on musical
cognition and behaviour of a' qualitative nature. The basic philosophical
problems concerning monism and pluralism are imiiplicit, and psychologists
tend to be monists. However, rather than argue in abstract philosophical
ten-ns, which is rightly the realm of philosophers, I am arguing for the
specific case of music on the assumption that musicians are pluralists and
mlusic is pluralistic in nature.
In p vc :o:ogical research in music one rarely encounters a definition of
the type of music being researched. There is a tendency to categorize all
activities loosely connected with man making sound as music and, therefore,
to regard them as related activities with commonalities. As a corollary, there
appears to be an assumption on the part of some researchers that the
diatonic scale s. stem and metrical rhythms constitute a kind of lingua franca
of music. In which case they are deemed adequate to satisfy as base-lines or
as representatives of the enormously diverse field of musical practice. This
appears to be a product of the psychologist's need for nomothetic tools. One
result is the elevation of - the comnmon, the general and the musically
insubstantial in applications of psychological research in fields such as
education.
Contemporary Art Music is -a contentious issue in musical circles largely
because of the predominance of historical musical content in music
education, both practical and theoretical. Music education has generally not
been very concerned with the greater emphasis on musical individualism, or
even icenoclas-9, which has become increasingly predominianit over the last
two h- d ed years or so. Some of the blame must accrue to the
psychological researche who tends to play safe and use musical materials
which are out of date or musically sterile, but which conform to what might
be called, statistically speaking, the mode of safe opinion about what
cons es music and musical behaviour. Researchers into the psychology of
visual art are :o' so constrained. There is a great deal of important and
168
Psychological Research and Music Education 169
illuminating research into historical, primitive, contemporary and ethnic art,
as well as children's drawings (see, for example, the work of Claire Golomb,
Rudolf Arnheim, and the associates of Project Zero). For example,
Gardner (1983) and Arnheim (1969) can analyse children's drawings using
images from contemporary or ethnic art as base-lines in explaining how the
child is conceptualising his visual experiences. Too often in the case of music
the base-line is taken from historical materials when the child's sounds may
be more relevant to John Cage or Edgard Varese than Handel or
Bononcini.
Above are adumbrated some of the important issues in the dialogue
between psychological researchers in music and musicians. Part of the
difficulty in such an exercise is to identify precise correlations between
musical scholarship and practical "mknow-how?? and psychological research in
music. However, under the headings listed below it is hoped that what
follows will address matters sufficiently to induce psychologists to debate
these issues.
Applications of the nomothetic approach of science to music
Scientific methods are frequently described as furthering our understanding,
facilitating description and enabling us to predict. The basic approach
utilised in psychology is the nomothetic one which seeks to establish broad
generalizations and universal laws. One reason for the musician's skepticism
towards this approach is worth explaining in some detail at this stage.
Throughout the, history of Western culture there have been many
nomothetic approaches to defining or explaining music scientifically which
have all proved to be irrelevant or even misleading musically. The
Pythagorean theory of Harmonics, upon which the whole fabric of Western
scientific theory about music is founded, is now regarded as unconnected to
musical practices of ancient Greece (see Henderson, 1957). Thus the origins
of Western scientific theory about music provide its flaw in being divorced
from what Greek musicians actually did. The interval ratios devised from
Pythagorean proportions using the tetrad (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4) were not
reflected in the singing which the Pythagoreans, Plato or Aristotle heard.
The human voice is capable of enormous variations, within certain bounds,
in wave repetition rates and harmonic spectra. To imagine that, for reasons
connected with abstract mathematical theories of proportion, singers would
limit their sung tones to those conforming to interval ratios contained in the
tetrad indicates a misunderstanding of musical behaviour. Aristoxenus, a
pupil of Aristotle, said as much in his criticism of the Pythagoreans. In any
case, such theories were more concerned with the physical reality of the
universe and man's place in it than with music. The writings of Boethius,
relaying ancient Pythagoreanism and Platonism to European scholars up- to
the Renaissance, and ideas of Plato' and Aristotle fuelling the growth of
Western scientific and intellectual thought from the 16th Century onwards,
are only too evident in scientific texts on music. In the 19th century,
Helmholtz (see 1954 edition) developed a monumental theory of relation-
ships between acoustics, human auditory functioning and musical practices.
Psycholog cal Research and Music Education
He likes ed acoustical dissonance, for example,? with musical dissonance, in
spite o tl.e nr si. al dissonances being written around him by Liszt, Wagner,
Brahms, and hen Mahler, which clearly demolished his theories in musical
terms Roederer (1979) has cleared the air for those who still cling to
Helmholtz's notions by showing that there is no connection between
acoustical and musical dissonance.
Earlier this cent ry, Heinrich Schenker developed a scientific method of
music ' .'analysis. - Its weaknesses have been exposed by many, including
Susanne Lancer (1953) who dismissed such analysis as ??essentially a barren
exercise??. Tae chief criticism s is thatat best it is ethnocentric and limited to a
short period or recent European musical history, and at worst it virtually
relegates a great deal of European and other ethnic music to some category
outside of m7 ,ic. During the late 1960s - and early 1970s Berlyne (see
BerlynceJ 197 1 " introduced his "new experimental aesthetics" which relied
upon of arousal. He cites the presence of Hedonic centres in the
brain and postulated a complex system of arousal and dearousal interactions
in responses to sounds, shapes, and colours. The problems were manifold.
Young (197.8) would only say that such ideas were no more than a beginning
in view of the complexity of reward systems in humans. A most serious
criticism, musically, lies in the vagueness of Berlyne's concept of pleasure.
Whether, it fact. he was dealing with aesthetic pleasure, a concept intrinsic
to modem Western music, or some vague sensory pleasure at a low level of
cognitive functioning, was never made clear. One was not sure whether the
pleasure he referred to was that of someone merely liking the sound of 19th
Century symphonic music as opposed to the specific musical symbolism
intended by, say. Berlioz or Tchaikowsky, with all the philosophical
problems involved.
More recently, Chomsky's theories of generative grammar in language
(themselves the subject of intense debate within linguistics) have been
applied to music by Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983). The idea that a theory
of language can apply to music is itself flawed. Language operates as a
uniquely flexible system for communicating precise meanings. Music does
not, and has no representational properties of the type associated with
language. The rather serious criticisms raised by Peel and Slawson (1984)
would tend to place the theory in the same category of ineffectualness as
Helmholtz' or Berlyne's. Its inability to account adequately for the
harmonization of a Bach choral or the theme from Mozart's A major Piano
Sonata is indeed a serious problem, particularly since the theory was
designed for such hings. When Peel and Slawson demonstrate, as they do
comprehensively in musical terms, that ??even the strongest hypothesis of the
theory .. is violated in tonal music" one cannot share Sloboda's (1 986b)
enthusiasm for it. This is not, to say that one does not hope it might be
developed further.
Ti'!' musical significance of 'cultural and social beliefs
The wc o e fabric of modem Western thought about music is built on notions
of music arformeci by those considered to be specially gifted in the
170
Psychological Research and Music Education
sense of possessing an ability to create the finest musical art. This is
characterized as something representing the highest ideals in its form,
content and execution. Thus we revere only the special few in music. We
hold up musicians of the past, such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc., or
"great" jazz players such as Coltrane or Parker as exemplars of supreme
giftedness. There is no tradition of esteem for the musically mediocre in
Western culture. Neither are there any democratic considerations of anyone
being able to do justice to making music in Western culture merely by being
trained as a musician. To succeed it is necessary to have special qualities
which transcend mere training. Even in the field of popular music the same
holds true. The masses will flock to hear their fantasies fulfilled by seeing
the latest popular music sensation (whether punk rock, heavy metal, - or
whatever) but not the person next door playing such music even though they
might be a better trained musician. There is virtually no tradition in modern
Western culture comparable to that of some other cultures, the Pygmies of
Equatorial Africa, for example (see Bebey, 1969), or the Copper Eskimos
of 'he Canadian Arctic (see Jenness and Roberts, 1925) where music is
practised by everyone purely and simply as an important social event. In
such societies music is an' integral part of everyday life and as crucial in
everyone's life as eating, sleeping and sex. Consequently everyone is a
musician and brought up from birth as such, and notions of "giftedness" or
musical qualitative (sic) differences are unknown.
The musician believes that such things induce profound differences in
musical behaviour and cognition between musicians in societies where
everyone performs and those in modern Western society. Western musicians
who teach look for some special "gift" to nurture, and only accept those
who they feel possess it. In societies such as the Copper Eskimo or African
Pygmy no-one is excluded as a performer, and the concept of ??giftedness?? is
unknown. Western concepts such as "giftedness" or "uniqueness" can be
given substance by drawing on the body of knowledge about music which
successive generations of musicians and music scholars have built up. Their
approach is essentially idiographic. Whilst one would not wish to condemn
out of hand the nomothetic approach to psychological research in music, the
evidence is sparse that it can produce anything which is musically relevant or
significant.
The Musician as Hero-the Rise of Individuality and Uniqueness
Within musical circles recognition of the "gifted" as being different from the
merely well trained is often a controversial matter. Eventually, though,
posterity seems to put things into proper perspective, and the truly "gifted"
emerge, while the "merely competent" fade into insignificance. The rise of
the "musician as hero" in the early part of the 19th century is an important
factor in beliefs about "giftedness", and the emergence of the musical
prodigy in the 18th century began the process. The demise of aristocratic
privilege after the French Revolution brought a new independence for
artists: they could be as individual, as esoteric as they wished. The age of
the artist as hero was born. It was proclaimed in novels, and music was
regarded as the "art of arts" (see Lang, 1978). Beethoven was acclaimed ae
171
s cholooical Research and Muisic Eduication
the epitome of the artist-hero. Consequently, musical composition became
more susceptible to some theory of musical expression than ever before.
Cons d r, for examlple, NVVagner's theory expressed in "Das XKunstwerk der
Zukunf" 'vi he e he said that "music is not to be comprehended by logical
examination but is to be recognized as a power of nature, whaich men
perceive but don ot understand", or the ideas of Liszt or Berlioz concerning
music's e tc iy transporting powvers. Such ideas may appear to border on
the insane to oh ective psychological researchers but they are part of music's
history. N-1-or--over, there is an extremely important and large corpus of
musical composition based on such ideas which forms a maj orpart of the
present Concert repertoire. However, to a musician, this means that musical
behaviour can be manifest 'I some theoretical concept of composition as
well as overt performalce; in the observable behav iour of a virtuoso like
Paganiri,-pavarotti or Ashkenazy, or the iconoclastic compositional ideas of
Liszt. Berlioz or Wagner, or John Cage, Peter Maxwell-Davies, Morton
Feldma-, Stockhausen, Steve Reich, or Earl Brown, etc. It also means that,
historically, composition moved out of the realm of social interaction into
the purely artistic, xvhere uniquness and individuality are imnportant
qualities.
Ail u erformers of "great" talentt in Western culture (except possibly
singers) have e:'ierged early. As Gardner (1983) says: "Of all the gifts wvith
which imo sicuals may be endoxved, none emerges earlier than musical
talent ii :ot gh speculation on this matter has been rife, it remains uncertain
just wvvhy s i >>sicai talent emerges so early" (page 99). There is, however no
clear-cut connection betveen ability as a performer and talent as a
composer. Many fine performers are not known for their compositions and,
vice-versa, many composers are not concert perforlmers. XXolfgang Amadeus
Mozart vas by no means as unique a musical prodigy in the 18th century as
he is now a composer. That was a time of child prodigies. Parents made
fortulnes out Or their prodigious children and, naturally all incipient talent
was nurtured carefully by ambitious parents. For some, a more prodigious
mnusical talent than Mozart's was that of Willianm Crotch. According to
Grove (1954) "his precocity is almost unparalleled in music; even Mozart
and Mendelssohn hardly equalled him in that respect". At the age of three
lie is said to have startled the musicians of Cambridge with his playing. He
went on to eniov distinction as a musical academic and composer. Of some
interest is the reported ability of Crotch to excel himself in the musical tests
and examinations available to the times (e.g. he was subjected to an enquiry
by the Royal Society a: the age of 5). Western thought has recognized in
Mozart's music something qualitatively different to, and more special than,
the music of William Crotch, yet all the evidence of their early years
indicated that Crotch was possibly. superior.
Rousseau, the philosopher, working in the same circles as Rameau, was
more highly regarded as a composer than Rameau by some! (His opera "Le
devin du village". 1753, was given more than 400 performances!) Beethoven
was certainly considered a good composer by his contemporaries, but some
thought C iementi or - umrnel superior. Cherubini, principal of the Paris
Conser'satdire in the 18306, called Berlioz's "Fantastic Symphony" an
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Psychological Research and Music Education
"abominable work" and declined to attend its first performance saying "I
don't want to be taught how not to write music with the air of a cat choking
down a forced dose of mustard." (see Newman, 1966, page 116). Liszt's
music was described as "the invitation to stamping and hissing" (Sitwell,
1967, page 191), and his piano playing as "similar to thumping and partially
destroying two very fine pianos" (Sitwell, ibid., page 99). The music of
Tchaikowsky earned the comments "madness and musical contortions" from
the famous critic Otto Gunprecht in the Berlin Zeitung of Septelmlber 17th,
1878. One can extend such accounts right up to the present-day So, clearly,
in some judgements about musical composition there appears to be an
elusive factor xvhich escapes some important contemporaries of the "great"
composer in question. It is suggested that, at the very least, this has some
signlificance for our understanding of nmusical cognition of "great" music!
There must be an element of acculturation or, perhaps, habituation
involved, which helps overcome problems caused by musical "uniqueness
One can be tempted to suggest that some contemporary perceptions of
musical ability or musical worth favTour the predictable and mediocre above
the "great the "individual" and the "unique". This might be facile,
howvever, in the sense that music serves many purposes and functions,
including social, political, religious, aesthetic; even therapeutic (see
Merriam, 1964), and in certain situations these factors are more important
than notions of "greatness" or "uniqueness". The idea of psychological
research in nmusic finding ways of testing for "greatness" is redolent of the
bad old days of intelligence testing and norm-referenced I.Q. tests. Music
would become truly boring if it were confined only to those wllo were
identified as "great". The emphasis in this paper on concepts of "greatness
"giftedness", or "uniqueness" is not one favouring such a restrictive view of
musical activity. Rather, it is intended to highlight these traditional WXestern
musical concepts in order to show their importance for mnusicians. Implicit in
such statements, however, are suggestions of qualitative categories. They
may w ell be characterized into categories on such criteria as universal
appeal, uniqueness or iconoclasm. These might range from popular, light,
entertaining composers such as Henry Mancini, John WVilliams or Michel Le
Grand, to more serious, yet accessible figures like Vaughan Williams, or
Philip Glass, right up to such figures as Beethoven or, today, John Cage, or
Stockhausen. Similar categorizations could be.demonstrated in the field of
rock and popular music, ranging from, say, Olivia Newton-John, Michael
Jackson or Boy George, to figures such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry or Sid
Vicious. It is difficult for nmusicians to accept that there are not important
qualitative (sic) differences between such categories.
The educational development of "great" composers
One assumes colmlposers need some fornal education in music. Yet
tantalisingly, so many of the "great" composers appear to have taught
themselves or to have found from sources other than formal education the
things which mattered to them in their development as composers. This
would be understandable only if the sense of inexorable progression and
173
rsycrcoiogica 1 ReIsearch amd AlIIsic FEduzcafion
intercom ectedness in the development of Western musical composition,
implicit in most music education curricula derived from taxonomies such as
Bloom's, were misguided. The view that holds sway all too often is that each
successive generation.can build upon the previous one, and that, somehow,
all composers are connected in some more significant maininer than simply
that they all "do" music. This issue can be quite crucial both to
psychological research and music education. If each Western composer is a
musical uni;_,erse unto himself, often inventing his own musical language,
then it makes research into general musical practices rather complex and
difficult, and brinle's into question the use of behavioural objectives and
competence-based curricula in music education.
Too much evidence from the work of "great" composers seems to indicate
some kinc of major break from the past and distinctness from their
contemporaries' to warrant the characterization of significant musical history
in Western culture as purely and simply incremental (see NWestrup, 1967).
Some m:amnles wTill suffice to illustrate the point. Beethoven was quite clear
in his views that he learned little or nothilng from Haydn, Mozart, Salieri or
Albrec: tsberger, all of whom gave him some, pedagogical attention (see
Sonneck: 1967). We should not dismiss this purely and simply as arrogance.
Debussy was certainly among the high, achievers at the Paris Conserv atoire,
and ever ually was awarded the Rome Prize. However, he appeared to have
learned more of value to his personal development as a composer from the
cafe pianist Erik- Satie and from hearing the Jaxvenese Gamelan at a Paris
Exhib :ion Certainly, it is difficult to see how anyone could have taught
Debussy the new' fragmentary style he developed in a piece such as "Jeux".
The c,i:es-ion of how much he actually gained from the formal training in
music he had, wvhich led to his development as the unique composer he
became'. seems to be a legitimate one. Elgar was almost completely self-
taugl?t, and Pen ami. h Britten studied composition and piano from an early
age with- little other content in his for-mal 'musical education.; Charles Ives
graduated from r Yale and had music lessons early. There is little, hoxvever,
in his musical- education which might logically lead to his experimental and
entirely unique style. Haydn, after leavTing St. Stephen's Cathedral School in
Vienna, came across the works of C. P. E. Bach and studied these avidly. It
was from works like Bach's Wurtemburg Sonatas, and the orchestral music
of the Mannheim School tlhat Haydn got the incipient sonata form which he
took and developed, eventually to become knowTn as the "father" of the
synmphoiy. 1' 'al s Haydn, like Britten, appears to have bypassed the
extensive formnal education which Debussy went through and gone straight
to the xork which subsequently made him famous. Cardew (1971), in a
more modern and somewhat extreme viewpoint, writes: "In 1957 when I left
The Royal Academny of Music in London conmplex compositional techniques
were considered indispensable. I acquired some and still carry them around
like an to c that 1 am perpetually desirous of curing. Sometimes the
temp do occ' to me that if I were to infect my students with it I would
at last he -free of it myself Other composers of the last forty years or so
received their sisal e=ducation by various means. Some, like Stockhausen
or Vieeaths. wept Pore or I ess straight to avant-garde techniques just like
f
P{ycho/ogica/ Research and AIsi c Elducation1
Haydn or Mozart did, while others went through traditional, formal musical
training before emerging with their own unique style some time later.
Musically, the development of a modern composer can be viewed in
connection with the development of a musical personality. The common
factor appears to be simply the inexorable growth of a unique, integrated
musical personality which appears to develop irrespective of the type of
musical education it is exposed to. But there are at least two main patterns
'mplicit in the anecdotal evidence mentioned above: where there is
development without exposure to rigorous musical training involving more
generic techniques inimical to a personal style (Mozart, Mendelssohn,
Rossini, Haydn, Britten, etc. were in this category); where that may or may
not be an early flowering followed by formal musical training to be followed
by further exploration or study in order to discover or rediscover a personal
style (Debussy, Rameau, Vaughan Williams, Wagner, etc., were in this
category). The first developmental pattern is clearly more linear in trend,
whereas the second is more likely to be U-shaped. It is inconceivable that
composers such as Rameau, Berlioz or Vaughan Williams showed no signs
at all at an early age of their incipient "greatness". Their slower rate of
maturing might be said to involve slipping into mediocrity and obscurity
prior to emerging later, but this would be difficult to show empirically.
Interestingly,, this is a pattern of development adumbrated by Gardner and
Winner (1982) in respect of artistic ability and the effects of formal
schooling on this ability.
Citing Picasso's famous statement that once he "drew like Raphael but it
has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child",' Gardner and
Winner describe a connection between children's drawings and those of
mature artists. They claim that "just one afternoon with a collection
produced in an average pre-school will yield a handful of drawings that bear a
noticeable resemblance to such contemporary artists as Willem DeIKooning,
Helen Frankenthaler, Adolf Gottlieb, Pablo Picasso, or Jackson Pollock"
(page 154). They go on to suggest that pre-school children attain a certain
mastery in various symbolic domains" and "for a relatively brief period
they flower ... and one can speak of a phase of genuine early artistry. But
as quickly and brilliantly as this period erupts, it often seems to disappear
again". They then explain that as children enter school they "confront quite
a different agenda ... the need to master. . . the rules of society . .. to
follow them with fidelity, to be certain that one does not deviate, err, fail to
conform.. ." (page 162). Gone is the adventurousness and spontaneity and
in its place there arises "a developing compulsion to detail and adherence to
rules". Consequently, Gardner and Winner posit a U-shaped behavioural
growth pattern which has a demonstrably high level at pre-school, dipping
during formal schooling and rising again when the artist is free to follow his
own inclinations.
Substituting musical composition for drawing one can see the possibility of
certain parallels. Mozart's more linear growth pattern is likely to have been
changed to a U-shape had he encountered a more formalised, institutionally
structured musical education, such as one encounters with, say, criterion-
175
16wenoioglee esearch and Music Education
referenced, aog His meeting with Padre Martini, "Europe's oracle
upon the h ory and science of music" (see Hutchings, 1976), in Bologna in
1770 s some dication of this; he did not perform exceptionally well on the
tasks of forma musical training set by one of the greatest musical
pedagogues the lgth- century (see Einstein, Gardner's characteriza
tion of formal schooling as a process of inducing conformity and thereby
diminishing artistic spontaneity can, in some instances, be applied,
to formal s?cal education in respect of the development of composers-
-
- NXwu mnuicsb fleEs and psychological' research in music
The seeming unpredictability of the emergence of the musical hero, the
apparent lack of . edictable musical characteristics of the hero, and the
randomness of experience which appears capable of yielding a "great"
musician present problems for the psychological researcher and music
educator. C'eariy, researching music is quite, different from researching any
natural phenomenon n one crucial respect. Music is conceived by the
human mind and received as music by the human mind.
Psychological research tends not to deal with musical intuition, or with
how the human mind responds musically. Instead, it tends to be influenced
exclusveiv cv rationalism and empiricism in such a fashion that musical acts
of -intuition are - dismissed or wrongly - categorized. The traditions of
rationalism and empiricism stemming from pre-Socratic Greece through to
the present day represent only one mode of enquiry and of knowing-the
rational and logical. Empiricism, although regarded as being in opposition
to rationalism, nevertheless seeks to verify the same things as rational
enquiry b u' through different methods. Rational, logical thought is the focus
of empirical research into human behaviour. The suggestion is that musical
invention, behaviour and response are inaccessible to rational models.
Music rep_ resents an entirely different way_ of knowing which is to do with
intul io:n. or what Aristoxenus represented in "The Harmonics" in the a
priori notion of musical SYNESIS (see Macran, 1902, and Levin, 1972).
Music lies in the same field as myth, legend and fantasy. It is in the realm
of human creation rather than that of rational and empirical truths. We
invent both belief systems about music and the music supporting the belief
system. Subjecting music, therefore, to the traditional Western modes of
enquiry in rational or empirical traditions leads us, I suggest, nowhere
musically use: _1. What is useful, in which case, is knowledge about the
human proclivity to generate beliefs and act upon them.
In fact recently, Gazzaniga (1985) has suggested some neurological and
biological correlates for the generation of belief systems which, he claims,
are important in all human behaviour: "The mind is not an indivisible
whole. oreratir_ in a single way to solve all problems. Rather, there are
many specific and idenViably different- units ... dealing with all the
infor-, a:bicn they are exposed to ..'. We humans resist the interpretation
that so-ne behaviours are capricious because we seem to be endowed with
an endless apacity to generate hypotheses as to why we engage in any
behaviour" page 5). T is would seem to make sense to musicians in that it
176
Psychological Research and Music Education
is clearly a belief in the musical worth of, say, Mozart which endowxs the
musical elements he uses in his compositions with the special meaning they
have to those who "know", just as it is belief which upholds the meanings
inherent in the sounds used in punk rock, celebrations of the high mass, or
political rallies. Consequently, it would seem to be important that
researchers identify their research as relevant to musical beliefs in these
things, or others such as, for example, the popular appeal of Henry Mancini
or the iconoclasm of John Cage. The danger is that of not specifying, yet
1mplying that psychological research, by such default, is applicable to all
music. If is possible, if beliefs are powerful as motivators of human
actixTities, that music in any culture may comprise uniquely self-contained,
discrete, and probably unconnected systems. This would haxTe particular
rele- ance for extrapolations from research to ' performance-based and
colm-petence-based pedagogy in music education.
The empirical and the rational versus the musical
Bamberger's (1982) study, cited by Hargreaves (1986), is one of the few
research studies of children's creatixe responses in music. In it she analyses
children's responses in tasks of inventing notations for rhythms they have
clapped. Psychologically it is clever and ingenious, but musicallv it is
disappointing. A model for the development of rational, logical thought in
children is used to develop a typology of invented notations. In doing so,
Bamberger does not take sufficient account, in my opinion, of the musical
ald acoustisal problems associated with clapped sounds. Such sounds cannot
be sustained, for example; and durationally there is no difference between a
clapped eighth or quarter note. Children compensate for this by making
longer sounds louder in their clapping. They also tend to associate louder
xvith longer in such circumstances, and tend to represent the longer (i.e.
louder) notes by larger sized symbols. Surprisingly, in viexv of the
predominance of large/small distinctions in the examples of notations given
(see Figure 1), Bamberger does not explore the loud/soft inter-pretation
from a musical point of view. She prefers instead to treat the children's
notations as evidence of a development of logical thought in a Piagetian
naO 1 10 0 noo O0O&h OOOoo
I v f *Z. s I z 3 L3
o oaa O o na I;1 oon 00000Q QeoC
1 234 L3M Lay
-9U IJED
no Oeo OQQ
, L i i -i i
L3 12.3 t Z3
FIGURE
177
cho.egicz i Research and lusic Education
model , _ .a responses are nmade to the durational aspect of the
stimulus alone.
There are other, more suibtle and musical aspects of rhythm which
transcendtose of mere duration. Response to rhythm is, in a nusical
sense, a more complex activity than merelv that of perceiving
durat oral d' erences. In the context-of a rhythmic movement containing
some Kind t expressive phrase of different note lengths, durational
relation ships are perceptually subsuned by the more inportanit musical
relatt nsships of rhythm.
There are signs that she recognizes the limitation of her reliance on
duration . s the sole focus of the children's responses: "consistency and
greater obtectiv ty" of 'he musically tiained "sometimes blur important
distinictions" in -riyth'mc notations produced by children (page 203). Had
she drawn on the work of m-usicians, as Gardner and Winner did in art (see
above)she might have made a case similar to theirs in respect of inusic. A U -
shaped -growth ofmusicality caused by a dipping during formzal education might
be extrapolated ona Bam 'oerger's (lata using referents from both notations
found n cone n porarY n 'sic and the views of composers on the function of
notation in relation to musical actions.
U OtY1 tooW
P.
F. .f*
A2;atS 1t3 I
- | l } t- 3r 4 2. 3 tb L
PF2 000 OOooo
FIGURE 2
Musically, duration is arguably the least signitficant aspect of rhythum. The
work of many composers shows a conscious desire to avoid the musical
sterility of simiiple, metric items such as quarter and eighth notes. Of some
significance is the probability that evidence of an awarenesss in children of
these higher levels of rhythmic meaning is the musical equivaleint of
evidence o nc sophisticated visual concepts associated with mature artists
G's.rdner and Winner, foumd in some pre-chuoler's drwings.
The musical inadequacy of Bamberger's iingeniously derived "rational"
typology e exposed by examining her explication and introducilng
musical n s nuto ult discussion. The crucial distinction she makes is
between no ions vhici" denote both the quarter note beat and the number
17
Psychological Research and Music Education
of events which occur in relation to it (i.e. both quarter (crotchets) and
eighth note (quaver) events), and those which denote the sequence of claps
in some other fashion which might appear to ignore the essential durational
difference between quarter and eighth notes. Thus notations which do not
show both the discreteness of each clap, for example, and the durational
relationship, even though they may contain the correct number of events,
are described as figural. Included in this category are notations (Figure 2)
which show a difference between quarter notes and eighth notes by designating
the former 0 and the latter o (page 212). This is curious because standard music
notation uses a similar figural visual distinction: quarter notes J, half notes
J , eighth notes Jo. On the other hand children's notations (pages 1i94-212)
which show a clear size difference between the two (i.e. quarter notes 0 and
eighth notes 0) are described as metric, and therefore deemed to be more
accurate in depicting the durational relationship (Figure 3). Other studies
(Walker, 1978, 1981, 1985, 1987) -demonstrate a clear preference_ for
matching visual size with loudness, and horizontal length with duration. In
tests requiring invented visual metaphors for sound there was no evidence
that either musically experienced or musically naive subjects matched
duration with size. It is entirely possible that Bamberger has misinterpreted
the children's metaphors as relating to duration when, in fact they relate to--
their perceptions of accent or loudness, or even to a sense of musical phrase
length due to accenting.
A brief perusal of almost any collection of musical scores written during
the last fifty years would yield notations similar to many in Bamberger's
study which she describes as figural, or as not relating logically to the
durational aspect of the clapped rhythms. For example, in the figural
11 o o00000000o
F.1 nnw
FIGURE 4
M..20 04000 oCO.
J = 140)
m.3 00~9 ooooo J=45 c J=60)
FIGURE 3 FIGURE 5
category one young child notates a series of eighth and quarter notes as a
continuou line moving up and down with some differences in the size and
disposition of the lines (Figure 4). In Karkoschka (1-972)- a similar use of
such visual movement is employed to denote tempo (Figure 5). Karkoschka
explains that "degree of tempo increase or decrease is illustrated by the
slope of the slanting lines and the distances between vertical lines" (page
22). Bamberger makes reference to the problem of tempo as experienced
between quarter and eighth notes. It is quite possible to make a case for
179
Psychological Research and Music Education
saying that these types of figural notations reflect a more penetrating musical
insight than the more prosaic metric ones Bamberger holds up as exemplars
of developed logical thinking.
Another example of the type of logical problem Bamberger sees children
wrestling with in her developmental framework is that concerning relation-
ships between tempo and duration. A mature musician's notation depicting
this relationship is seen in the score of Boulez's "Le Marteau sans Maitre".
One example will suffice. He designates beats as follows o- ne beat; 4
two beats; A = three beats. Here each visual unit is a representation of a
certain number of beats, but they are not depicted metrically in the fashion
Bamberger feels children logically ought to by virtue of their musical
training. Boulez, therefore, produces figural notations despite his rigorous
musical training and experience. Bamberger (page 212) reports similar
designations (Figure 6) which she describes as figural (meaning musically
untutored) or as "slipping and switching" between figural and metric by
Children who are in "transitional flux" in developmental terms (page 214).
Generally, her operational definitions, whilst being psychologically
acceptable in Piagetian terms, are thus musically confusing. She appears to
confuse acts of perceiving musical concepts of rhythmic movement involving
Y. I I I I I I -
FIGURE 6
accent, phrase length and, what musicians like to think of as, motion in
temporal space with an imagined proclivity to focus on simple durational
relationships of a metric nature. One is poetic, the other prosaic. Thus,
perhaps unwittingly, children's poetic responses are misrepresented as
rational and prosaic.
On a more generalised as well as poetic level concerning contemporarv
uses of notations, Earl Brown in his Notes to the score '4 Systems" explains
that the score "exists in space" and the performer should "work
compositionally and in performance to right, left, back, forward, up, down,
and all points in between . . . the score being a picture of this space at one
instant, which must always be considered as unreal and/or transitory . . . (a
performer must set all this in motion (time)." This takes notation out of the
realm of a simple chronological replica of metrical pulses. As Cardew (1971)
states, "notation is a way of making people move". Such statements betray a
type of thinking which lies outside the realm of Platonic or Piagetian models
of rational, logical thought. In which case it would seem pointless to develop
a typology of invented notational forms derived from prosaic rather than
poetic models.
Some applications of psychological research in general music education
Psychological research is an important source of data for those who manage
and organise schools and school curricula. If such research in music is
ignoring the ways musicians and music scholars know and define music, then
music education practices unconnected with music are likely to develop. In
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Psychological Research and Music Education
which case general music education is likely to induce a stultifying
conformity, leading to rejection by children. In fact there is some evidence
that this has already occurred (see Witkin, 1974) for many school children.
Specialist music education for the intending performer seems to be
unaffected because of the survival of the apprenticeship system in that type
of instruction. The gulf between expectations produced by specialist music
education and demands of certain practices of general music education was
already evident by the early 1970s (Witkin, ibid).
By far the most pervasive and important contribution psychological
research has made to educational practice generally has been the
organisation of general school curricula into taxonomies of educational
objectives; the nomothetic approach to the complex business of education.
This has extended into all aspects of education from curricula planning,
teaching strategies and implementation, to evaluation and progress reports.
Of particular significance have been the works of B. Bloom, R. Mager, and
R. Gagne over the last thirty years or so in developing taxonomies of
learning for educational use. Sufficient discussion of the weaknesses
inherent in the applications of what are essentially militaristic or industrial
training techniques (Bloom and Mager had backgrounds in military and
industrial psychology) to the subtle tasks of education in the broad sense has
already occurred (see, e.g. Smith, 1975) to warrant repeating the arguments.
There is need, however, to point out some applications in general music
education in the context of contemporary education's reliance on taxo-
nomical approaches, how this reliance serves to distort the knowledge of
music gained from musical scholarship and specialist musical education, and
how it contributes to expanding the gulf between general and specialist
music education.
In most texts on educational objectives, general music education for all is
dealt with under headings such as "The Affective Domain of the Taxonomy
of Educational Objectives" (Kibler et al, 1974). The taxonomy is usually
defined as a value system, and the source of such values is nothing more
than personal opinion and an individual's growing awareness of, and
positive feelings about his/her personal value system (see Kibler, pages
98-106). Thus the whole complex field of musical expression is reduced to a
taxonomy beginning with a student's willingness "to receive or to attend to
the existence of certain phenomena and stimuli" and culminating in "those
objectives which concern one's view of the universe, one's philosophy of
life, one's Weltanschauung-a value system having as its object the whole of
what is known or knowable" (Kibler, ibid). Learning about music is thus
reduced to knowing about all music which exists and forming personal
opinions about its worth. Not only is this a hopelessly unrealistic and rather
pointless aim, but it ignores the essence of modern Western musical
development: the culture's proclivity to value some works of ar t above
others, and the musician's need to have his individuality appreciated
artistically. Students educated through such taxonomies will know about
Mozart and Crotch, Beethoven and Clementi, Rousseau and Rameau, etc.,
and possibly which of each pair is more highly regarded, but will not know
why, and will thus be cut off from the main springs of Western thought on
181
Psychological Research and Music Education
such matters. They may even develop preferences which run counter. Such
music education is thus concerned with quantitative knowledge about music,
and with enabling students to form their own values, or their own
philosophy of music, rather than learning about the aesthetic values which
Western civilization believes in and considers to be of supreme human
artistic worth. This is a rather insidious perversion of the significance of
"uniqueness", etc., in modern Western music. The essence of such
uniqueness lies not in what each individual thinks for himself but rather in
what the culture believes is actually unique and individual about a piece of
music. This can only be derived initially from informed sources, and
ultimately from an individual's intimate knowledge of such things. This is a
very complex process, and attempts to generalise and simplify can easily
trivialise in the manner explicated. The purpose of general music education
should be to teach students how to understand their responses to music
through learning how to apprehend the uniqueness of a Beethoven, Charlie
Parker, John Cage, Elvis Presley etc., not merely to form opinions based on
surveys or discussions with their peers, or other uninformed sources. In such
approaches education can easily become less concerned with the transmis-
sion of knowledge than with allowing each individual the privilege of not
learning the beliefs of Western, or any culture.
The level of triviality to which such music education can descend is
illustrated in the following examples which are typical of many texts in
current usage in schools. Utz and Leonard (1971) explain how one can write
objectives in music instruction (page 43): "If the goal of a course was that
the student should gain an understanding of music, an objective that would
clarify this goal and remove it from the realm of the mystical might
read-The student will devise a plan for seating members of a symphony
orchestra so that no one section will predominate when all sections are
playing together". It is difficult to see how, with the most sympathetic
attitude possible, such a plan can contribute anything to the goal of
understanding mugic, if the word understanding means anything etymo-
logically defensible. Imagining that problems of acoustics have anything to
do with understanding music is equal to notions that one can understand
literature by studying the actions of the vocal tract in speech. In another text
(Plowman, 1971) we read how "higher cognitive skills objectives in music"
are formulated. Examples include the following: 1) "After listening to or
singing three songs, pupils in the third grade are to tell the teacher what
they like or do not like about the songs". This is labelled "evaluation"' 2)
"Using all available likely references and consulting two or more adults, the
student is to list criteria for judging the worth of a given musical
composition". This is labelled "analysis and synthesis".
These are activities which form the educational application of psycho-
logical research. In them process has replaced substance. The student is not
introduced to the complexity of musical aesthetics through the works of
those who created the aesthetic experience-the composers. Instead, music is
likened to a field trip in science on the assumption that just as one observes
the reality of science by looking under stones or walking along the beach, so
one can find the reality of music through polling and surveying. Music is
182
Psychological Research and Music Education
man's creation and, therefore, should be approached differently from
scientific phenomena not created by man. But these examples are not rare
or extreme in the literature currently being used daily in schools. They serve
to show how knowledge can be reduced to simple, functional pigeon-holes
peculiar to taxonomies of learning and the achievement of educational
objectives. Trivialisation is not what the proponents of such approaches
desire, but it is the result.
Even in a scheme which is among the best, musically (the Manhattanville
Music Curriculum Program-see Thomas, 1979), the organisational demands
of a taxonomy of learning and experience require decisions where musical
elements are set out in hierarchical sequence with a matching hierarchy of
objectives. The MMCP presents such a sequence in the form of a
"Curriculum Concept Spyral". This is the heart of the program, and
students work through the 16 cycles of the spyral. It looks very plausible and
laudable until one examines in detail the sequence of musical elements.
Then one begins to doubt the wisdom of attempting to categorize musical
elements in such fashion. Cycle 16 is meant to contain more complex
concepts than Cycle 7, for example, but musically it does not. In Cycle 16
under "pitch", clusters assume a position of greater sophistication than
polyphony under "pitch" in Cycle 7. There is little doubt that this is
controversial, musically. Understanding polyphony, even hearing it ade-
quately, is an extremely sophisticated activity. By comparison, the use of
clusters is musically crude and rather limited. There is a vast literature of
musical polyphony ranging over many centuries, but the use of clusters is
confined to a small number of 20th century musicians. There are many other
similar musically indefensible orderings of elements in the 16 cycles, but this
example will suffice to illustrate the musical weakness of the basis of the
taxonomy. The spyral is organizationally efficient and the concepts are
hierarchical in organizational terms only. In filling the structure musical
issues have become of limited or no relevance. One cannot sequence
musical elements in such a manner. A simple major scale can assume some
of the most complex and difficult musical concepts in a sonata or fugue, and
some seemingly complex combinations of notes (like clusters, for example)
can be no more complex musically than a nursery rhyme in certain types of
improvisation.
The application of scientific methods to music is all too apparent. To
imagine that one can categorize music in the way one can classify living
creatures in terms of their cellular configuration, simply in terms of
complexity for example, misses the whole point of musical art. The elements
of music are not like the basic scientific elements of matter. One cannot
move from musical elements to musical art as one can from cells to
organisms in science. The analogy between science and music is false in this
respect. Music does not exist at all at an atomistic level. When one breaks
down a piece of music into its components one has nothing of musical value;
merely chords, intervals, rhythms, etc. A piece of music only exists in the
way a musician has put the elements together. The point of music education
should be to learn about the ways musicians put elements together, not to
learn about the elements. The analogy with science is further undermined by
183
Psychological Research and Music Education
the fact that musicians tend to invent their own elements as well as complete
structures. All this would seem to lie outside the scope of the type of
educational applications of psychological research described above, and
much similar activity in schools.
Final Comments
This paper contains three examples of applications from other areas or
disciplines in what amounts essentially to a reliance on rationalism and
empiricism as a basis for understanding music: a generative grammar ot
music based on a controversial one for language; a taxonomy of learning
music based on industrial or military training; a typology of invented
notations for musical rhythms based on logical, scientific modes of thinking
more appropriate to calculus. It is suggested that all three are misguided if
they seek to further our understanding of music and to develop the practices
of music education.
The Greek love of rationalism from the pre-Socratic philosophers
onwards can be traced throughout the development of Western culture, uLp
to Piaget and beyond. It has dominated Western thought. However, music
has always had an aura of something lying outside the bounds of rational,
logical thought. Music is born out of something more intuitive, more outside
the realms of such things as conscious rational argument and empirical
scientific predictability. The crucial importance of musical intuition in the
practices of music, and the irrelevance of scientific empiricism or rational
thinking to music was argued by Aristoxenus over two thousand years ago.
In view of all this, I would like to see more attention given in
psychological research to identifying the scope and nature of differences
between cognitive strategies leading to rational and empirical truth and
those leading to artistic truths. The criticism of nomothetic approaches in
this paper is a criticism of a universal application of the former to all mental
acts. For music educators it would be of some importance to know that
there were fundamental differences between the ways Mozart or Berlioz,
and Newton or Einstein arrived at their respective truths. Educators can
make a distinction at the level of an educational product: objective evidence
of calculation in mathematics can be contrasted with the subjective opinions
of musicians about musical achievement.
There is little of any substance from psychological research in music to aid
in the formulation of curricula for music education, precisely because of its
reliance upon rationalism or scientific empiricism. The intuitively derived
educational ideas of musicians such as R. Murray Schafer (see Walker,
1984) have provided more penetrating educational insights than most of
those from research. Researchers need to start from intuitive musical
premises rather than objective, rational ones. This means, for example,
accepting that there are musical ways of knowing and defining pitch and
rhythm, and that assuming a prosaic acoustic definition for experimental
purposes can remove such research from the realms of relevance to music.
Furthermore, the suggestion (made above) that young children can possess,
intuitively, artistic and musical ways of seeing, hearing and representing is
184
Psychological Research and Music Education
worth investigating, along with the charge that formal education, with
rationalism and empiricism as its main driving forces, achieves a diminution
or destruction of these ways of responding. Psychological research could
perform a valuable service to educators by establishing the importance of
these things.
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