Both Arlene and Carl attend school, interact with friends and family, and go about their daily lives. However Carl appears to suffer from frequent seizures -- seizures that exhibit striking and bizarre symptoms. On occasion, Carl will sit in a chair for long periods of time, staring off into space. Sometimes he will remain utterly immobile, except for the repetitive wiggling of his foot. At times, he will stand up, spin-around, stamp his feet, and shake uncontrollably. At other times, drops of fluid will ooze out of his eyes. These seizures appear to be brought about by strange noises. Oddly, Carl makes no effort to escape from these seizure-inducing sounds.
His neighbor, Arlene, exhibits similarly weird behaviors. At times, Arlene appears to chew on a large metal stick containing a number of holes. Sometimes she does this alone, but frequently she does this with other humans, some of whom shout, or yank on metal wires, or hit stretched plastic sheets with wooden sticks. Again, these behaviors are linked with strange noises.
To anyone who doesn't understand it, music involves some of the most ridiculous and nonsensical of human behaviors. Of course there are other areas of human behavior that are equally bizarre -- such as sex. But sex has a clear function in maintaining continued human existence. Music doesn't seem to have any comparable utility. Deaf communities do fine without music, so why all the fuss?
Even if we believe that music is not essential to human existence, it would be quite wrong to consider music to be some marginal or relatively inconsequential activity. Consider, by way of example, the sheer scale of music as an economic activity. In the United States economy, high technology exports are overshadowed by exports from the entertainment industry. Of music, film, television, toys, games and sports, it is music that generates the foremost revenues. The music industry is larger than the pharmaceutical industry: people spend more money on sheet music, music lessons, instruments, stereos, sound recordings, concert tickets, etc. than on prescription drugs. Music is obviously important (and not just for economic reasons). Yet it seems to be such an irrational, peculiar, and superfluous part of human existence. What could possible explain music's frivolous importance?
One of the foremost tasks of music scholarship is to understand why music plays such an important role in human lives. Why do people engage in such activities? Considering that people give so much to music, what does music give in return?
Scholars who study music are called musicologists. Scholars who study music-related behaviors are called psychomusicologists. This book is about psychomusicology.
What is psychomusicology? A field of inquiry can often be conveniently described by listing some of the questions its practitioners hope to answer. That is, a discipline may be characterized by a certain set of questions; those who become involved in the discipline share the practical goal of hoping to answer some of these questions.
A wide variety of questions shape the field of psychomusicology. Some questions already have answers -- although most of these answers are provisional or incomplete. Some of the questions will not be resolved in the foreseeable future; some questions are in principle unanswerable. Moreover, some of the questions are undoubtedly malformed and wrong-headed, although it may take centuries to discover which questions are bogus.
Why do people make music? Does music-making contribute to human survival in some way? Why doesn't every culture in the world have similar music? Are animals capable of appreciating or "understanding" human music? Does music always have to involve sounds? For example, can deaf people learn to appreciate music (say) by reading a score?
Why are some people more musical than others? What are the elements of musical ability? Is musical "intelligence" independent of general intelligence? Can musical talent be identified or measured? Can we predict which children are likely to be most musically gifted? Why are some people "tone-deaf?" Can something be done to help tone-deaf people become more musical? Why do only some people have "perfect pitch?" Can perfect pitch be learned? Is musical ability inherited? How is it that some people can "hear" what's written in a score without any sound? How do composers know what to write?
How does music give pleasure? Why does the sound of finger-nails scratching a blackboard sound so bad? What makes some sonorities or chords sound pleasant? How are we able to identify different instruments by their sounds? Why do our musical preferences sometimes change over time? Why do people disagree about musical likes and dislikes? Why do musical styles change? Are musical preferences related to personality? Does everyone "hear" music the same way? How does our musical "hearing" change as we grow-up and grow old? Do children experience music the same way adults do? Can we hear/understand the music of another culture in the same way as people from that culture do?
Why do we need so much music and so much musical variety -- why don't we limit our listening to just the dozen best works? Why can't we enjoy listening to two pieces of music at the same time?
Is music somehow similar to speech or language? Why are melody and rhythm so important in music? Why do some chord progressions sound better than others? Are some scales "better" than others? Why does rubato exist -- why isn't music played strictly according to the notated timing? What makes some interpretations of a work sound better than others? Why do some melodies get stuck in your head? Why don't all melodies get stuck in your head? Why can't we recall everything we've ever heard? How does repeated listening to a work change our experience of it? With training, how might we listen differently? What is the origin of various compositional rules, such as the rules of "voice-leading?"
How does music evoke emotions? Are there some emotions that cannot be evoked by music -- such as shame or guilt? Why does some music make us nostalgic? Why do people willingly listen to music that makes them sad? What makes us hate some songs? What makes something "musical?"
Why do musicians have to practise so much? Is there a better way to practise? What is the best way to teach music? Why do some performers suffer from stage fright? Is there anything that can be done to lessen or avoid stage fright? How are groups of performers able to coordinate their activities? How is it that some people are able to improvise music? How do groups of improvising musicians work together? Why does some music make people want to dance? Why doesn't music make people want to cook or work in the garden?
Why do most people prefer tonal music to atonal music? What is tonality anyway? Why is it easy to drive a car and listen to music at the same time, yet it is often difficult to read a book and listen to music? Why is some music more distracting than others? Can music "heal" people? Can music somehow corrupt or enhance moral behavior? Is background music bad for you? Can a person listen to too much music? Can listening to music make you smarter? Does the complete absence of music have a detrimental effect on people? Why are some people more enthusiastic about music than others?
Does our personal physiology affect our experience of music? How does illness or physiological abnormality influence musical experience? Are there musical hallucinations? What happens when you "imagine" music? Can drugs enhance musical pleasure? Can drugs take away musical pleasure? If so, why? Does music "happen" in a particular part of the brain? Are there brain structures specialized for just music? Are there different ways of "listening?" With training or effort, how differently might we be able to hear music? Are there limits to what music could be? Is music a spiritual phenomenon? What is the relationship between music and the other arts? How does history and culture relate to music?
Many of the questions posed above are questions that have shaped, or currently shape, the field of psychomusicology. Many of these questions will provide the substance and focus for the course curriculum.
In addressing the above questions it is inevitable that we are going to delve into some phenomena of considerable complexity. In fact, there are few subjects of human investigation that don't involve lots of details. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that we tend to regard the things we know well as "details" whereas the things we don't understand we tend to view as "technicalities." For most of us, mixing two chemicals is a "technical" activity whereas cooking a meal is not. Of course chemists don't see things this way. For a chemist, mixing two chemicals is typically simple, whereas cooking a meal is a technical tour de force.
Music is full of "details" that to the outsider seem "technical" -- like the concept of a "double-sharp" or the notion of a "plagal cadence." For the musician, these are no more technical than a spoon is to a cook. They are simply part of the knowledge we take for granted. By contrast, for most musicians, the concept of an endorphin molecule receptor will be a "technical" concept whose musical pertinence is perhaps suspect. By the end of this book you are apt to think differently: some sort of music might exist without plagal cadences, but it is almost certainly the case that no music would exist without endorphin molecule receptors (or something similar).
Initially, the things you don't understand (particularly biological and cognitive phenomena) will seem highly technical. It's my fervent hope that, by the end of the book, these things will have been transformed into mere details -- musically pertinent details.