Individual differences in listening to music / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Charles Samuel Myers
Date:
[1922 ?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Individual differences in listening to music / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/28 (page 58)
    restricted methods of procedure, fewer aspects are appealed to, and of these only the more habitual and the more ready. From these considerations we should expect to find that different kinds of music may evoke different aspects in the same listener, so that he comes to realise that there are many different ways in which he can appreciate music. As one of my subjects, K., remarked, “Sometimes I listen to music seeing the orchestra and attending to the technique, some¬ times enjoying visions of forests, etc., that come before me, sometimes paying regard to the meaning, the sadness, etc., of the piece.” An artificial purity of type may arise from the process, conscious or unconscious, of inhibition. We have seen, for example (p. 56), how the character aspect may be inhibited by the intra-subjective aspect: instead of regarding the music as a personality, the listener’s attention is directed to the sensations, emotions and impulses evoked in him. Here a ‘higher’ aspect is replaced by a ‘lower’ (for aesthetically the character aspect stands unquestionably higher than the intra-subjective1). But the con¬ verse may also occur. Instead of the lower aspect being released, it may be controlled by higher inhibition. One of my subjects, N., observed: “I should have felt distinctly wretched....but I very rarely let myself go.” Such higher control is especially exercised over the associative aspect. “ I object to these suggestions (i.e. associations),” says another, D., “for I find then that the music...is not listened to for itself. I want to do that.” “ If I had not had to give introspective data,” says yet another, H., “ pro¬ bably the images would have passed unnoticed.” (Cf. also p. 60.) 4. The Objective Aspect in the Technician. It is interesting to find that the objective aspect in which the musical material is considered in reference to the listener’s standard, occurs most frequently among those technically trained in music, who tend to adopt a critical attitude and are interested in the material of their art. Consider, for example, the reports of the professional musical subject, M.: “I noticed the second horn was too loud....When the second tune came with the ’cellos, it didn’t stand out enough.” “I noticed by what simple means in these modern days he gets his effects. I noticed also...how he gathered up his climax by syncopation.” “As always in Beethoven, one must notice the tremendous...contrasts, especially dynamic con¬ trasts. His crescendoes always give me pleasure. Beethoven makes scale passages so much more interesting than, say, Liszt.” “As usual, the viohnist uses too much vibrato....The sweep up the strings made me feel 1 Cf. Bullough, This Journal, 1910, hi, 417.