All rhythm is primarily a projection of personality. My rhythm flows from what I am. A large part of the pleasure in music comes from a satisfaction in what rhythm does. Rhythm facilitates perception by grouping; rhythm adjusts the stream of attention; rhythm gives a feeling of balance; rhythm gives a feeling of freedom, luxury and expanse; rhythm gives a feeling of power, it carries; rhythm, as in the dance, stimulates and lulls, contradictory as this may seem; rhythm finds resonance in the whole organism; rhythm arouses sustained and enriched associations; rhythm reaches out in extraordinarily detailed complexity with progressive mastery; the instinctive craving for experience in rhythm results in play, which is free self-expression for the pleasure of expression; rhythm plays not only with temporal but also with dynamic and qualitative aspects of tone. Subjectively, rhythm in music is a play within a play: The composer anticipates it, the performer gives the cue, and the listener expresses himself in it. _Music as play._ All art is play, and the charm of music, the purest form of art, lies fundamentally in the fact that it furnishes a medium of self-expression for the mere joy of expression and without ulterior purpose. It becomes a companion in solitude, a medium through which we can live with the rest of the world. Through it we express our love, our fears, our sympathy, our aspirations, our feelings of fellowship, our communion with the Divine in the spirit of freedom of action. Note the fundamental characteristics of play and observe how in these lies the power of attraction in music as play. Play gives a feeling of self-realization; it is the experience of growth. It expresses the racial life and in many respects is a reversion to type: It has been said that we are all of the same age--millions of years. Play is a realization of the sense of freedom; it attracts, engages and fascinates by the very satisfaction which it engenders and which supports it; the dance, when it is real play and not mere social labor or conformity, carries the dancer in so far as he falls into a state of diffuse and dreamy consciousness, intoxicated by the sense of pleasure, lulled by the automatic rhythmic movements, and soothed by the melodious and measured flow of music. Play gives satisfaction in the feeling of being a cause, of having creative power. Play is essentially social and finds its highest realization in good fellowship. Play is positive, an expression of the joy of life. The unrestraint and spontaneity of play result in strenuous and whole-hearted exertion; the seriousness of play is one of its fascinations. Success in play lies in its fictitious nature; it rests upon make believe; liberated from realities, it accepts the ideal and lives it as real. In the possibility of playing with the ideal lies a fundamental charm of music.