_B_--_The Human Voice._ Of all the sounds of given pitch and intensity the one which best attracts and maintains interest is the human voice. We habitually turn to the human voice. Sometimes we do it as a matter of courtesy. Again, we may do it for better understanding, or even out of curiosity. The spoken language is understood by far more people than is the so-called language of music. When words are set to music they command greater attention than when they are spoken. They are usually compact and in rhyme. We strain to hear each word to gather the full meaning and humor or cleverness of the lyricist. Yet, we willingly lower our literary standards when words are put to music. The verses of many songs sound vacuous and repetitious without accompaniment. But the words are made interesting by the melody, and melody takes on additional meaning from words. “Vocal music has greater power to arouse a definite emotional response than has instrumental music. Rest results about equally from instrumental and vocal music.”[71] Songs with words are ideally suited for arousing patient interest. Community singing is the most valuable form of music for maximum group response. LISTENING Violet Paget[55] sent questionnaires to one hundred and fifty people in different parts of the world to obtain a global sampling of reactions to music. From an analysis of their answers she found “two different modes of responding to music, each of which was claimed to be the only one in those in whom it was habitual. One may be called ‘listening’ to music; the other ‘hearing’ ... with lapses into merely overhearing it. Listening implied the most active attention.... Hearing is a lesser degree of the same mental activity where active attention occurs in moments like islands continuously washed over by a shallow tide of other thoughts.” This is very similar to Gurney’s classification of musical perception as “definite” and “indefinite.” Vernon[77] lists the varieties of response to indefinite listening as: a. Reflex or physiological; soothing or stimulating. b. General euphoria. c. Stimulation of thought and wandering of attention. d. Emotional moods of interpretation of the so-called “meaning” of music. e. Dramatic visual images of day-dreams. f. Awareness that sounds are going on, but no further response. g. Lapsing of this awareness into the “margin” of consciousness. He found reactions a. and b. among primitives and infants; and reactions c. f. and g. among the untrained.