Music -- Philosophy and aesthetics; Music -- Psychological aspects
From this large array of facts certain findings seem to be significant,
taking these measurements as a group. First, the sense of pitch, the
sense of loudness, and the sense of time reveal no distinctly
significant differences in racial groups, in culture-levels, or at
age-levels, when adequately measured. In many cases this holds also for
the sense of rhythm and tonal memory. This is probably indicative of the
fact that the basic capacities for hearing in individuals now living and
capable of being tested adequately are physiologically at the same
level. This conclusion is in harmony with the observation that these
capacities which function in music, function also in the vast varieties
of orientation through sound at all levels of man now living. It is also
analogous to what has been found in vision. Second, it develops that in
each and every one of the groups studied there are enormous individual
differences in each of these capacities and that the extent and
distribution of these differences do not differ significantly from what
we find in the public school children of the United States. Third, where
comparisons of capacity and achievement have been made reliably, it has
been found that those who have achieved distinction in music have these
capacities in a significantly corresponding degree; but much larger
numbers of those possessing superior capacity who have not been
discovered as musical, either by themselves or in their environment, are
revealed. This fact rules out many of the statistical studies of
heredity in terms of musical achievement. Fourth, these capacities
represent relatively independent factors in hearing. Fifth, marked
superiority or inferiority in these capacities is of predictive value
for musical achievement and guidance in education.
On the motor side but little progress has been made. Principally because
the measurements are laborious, significant elements have not been
identified, and moderate motor capacities in speed and action are
adequate for most musical achievements. Daily observations reveal that
children may be slow and accurate, slow and erratic, fast and accurate,
or fast and erratic in various degrees and combinations. It would,
however, be of musical significance to discover to what extent and in
what manner these traits are inherited from generation to generation.
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