Psychology of Music

Skip to main content
< All Topics
Print

Psychology of Music

Carl Seashore (1938)

Paperback RRP:  £20.99


Kindle:  £6.39


RCS access:  2 copies in library – ML 3830 S


I’m just going to list out the Chapters and Sections here to show how much was already being covered in the 30s – I think that gives a good indication as to what was important at that time.


Seashore is often considered the ‘Father of Music Psychology’, so this book plays a very important part is the establishment of music psychology as a discipline in its own right.


  1.  The Musical Mind
    • The sensory capacities
    • Musical imagery, imagination, and memory
    • Musical intelligence
    • Musical feeling
    • Musical performance
    • The meaning of this analysis
  2.  The Musical Medium
    • Musician, music, listener
    • Characteristics of the sound wave
    • Frequency:  pitch
    • Musical aspects of pitch intonation
    • Intensity:  loudness
    • Musical aspects of loudness
    • Duration:  time
    • Musical aspects of time
    • Wave form:  timbre
    • Musical aspects of tonal timbre
    • The musical performance score
  3.  The Science of Music
    • Scope of the subject
    • The performer, the music, the listener
    • General principles of science
    • Basic principles in the psychology of music
  4.  A Musical Ornament, the Vibrato
    • Nature of the vibrato
    • An example of the vocal vibrato
    • An example of instrumental vibrato
    • Frequency of occurrence, extent and rate of vibratos
    • Normal illusions which make for beauty of vibrato
    • The nature of beauty in the vibrato
    • Ear training for the vibrato
    • Use and abuse of the vibrato
    • The vibrato, good, bad, indifferent, and ideal
  5.  Pitch:  Frequency
    • The nature of pitch
    • Limits of audible pitch
    • Pitch discrimination
    • Absolute pitch
    • The significance of individual differences
    • Normal illusions of pitch
    • Subjective tones
    • The first difference tone
    • Other difference tones
    • Summation tones
    • Subjective harmonics
    • The difference tone a substitute for a low fundamental
    • Pitch performance
  6.  Loudness:  Intensity
    • The role of intensity
    • Sensitivity or hearing ability
    • Deterioration with age:  presbycousis
    • Children’s hearing
    • Discrimination:  the sense of intensity
    • Number of audible differences in loudness
    • Motor capacities
    • Intensity characteristics of musical tones
    • Amplification of sound
  7.   Duration:  Time
    • Nature of the perception of time
    • Discrimination:  the sense of time
    • Normal illusions of time
    • Motility
  8.  Timbre:  Wave Form
    • The nature of timbre
    • Harmonic analysis
    • Synthetic tones
    • Timbre discrimination:  the sense of timbre
  9.  Tone Quality:  Sonance
    • Analogy in moving pictures
    • Types of sonance
    • Sonance in attack, release, and portamento
    • The inside of a vocal tone
    • What is in a name?
    • Sonance in speech
    • Nature of the vowel in music and speech
    • The problem of formant regions
    • Dependence of harmonic structure upon fundamental pitch and total intensity in the vowel
    • Conversational vs. audience voice
  10.  Consonance
    • The nature of consonance
    • The psychological approach
    • Six psychological problems
    • Order of merit in each of four criteria
    • Order of rank on three criteria combined
    • The sense of consonance
  11.  Volume
    • Spatial factors
    • Quantitative factors
    • Qualitative factors
    • Temporal factors
    • Subjective factors
    • Carrying power
  12.  Rhythm
    • The nature of rhythm
    • What rhythm does
    • Individual differences in musical rhythm
    • Psychology of rhythm
  13.  Learning in Music
    • Twelve rules for efficient learning in music (to the pupil)
    • Some specific applications (to the instructor)
  14.  Imagining in Music
    • The analogy in sculpture and painting
    • Comparison of musicians and scientists
    • R. Schumann
    • Mozart
    • Berlioz
    • Wagner
    • Supplementary imagery
    • Living in a tonal world
    • The development of imagery
    • Individual differences in mental imagery
  15.  Thinking in Music
    • The issue
    • The nature of musical intelligence
    • How musicians rate
  16.  Nature of Musical Feeling
    • Determined by capacities
    • Intensified by pursuit
    • Characterized by intelligence and motor skills
    • Transfer to other situations
  17.  Timbre of Band and Orchestral Instruments
    • The bassoon
    • The clarinet
    • The French horn
    • The baritone horn
    • The cornet
    • The slide trombone
    • The flute
    • The oboe
    • The tuba
  18.  Violin
    • The violin performance score
    • The violin phrasing score
    • Comparison of the performance of two players
    • The pitch factor
    • The intensity factor
    • The temporal aspect
    • The timbre aspect
    • Intervals:  the problem of scales
  19.  Piano
    • Piano touch
    • The piano camera
    • The piano performance score
    • Section of Chopin Nocturne No. 6
    • Similarity in statement and restatement
    • Consistency of interpretation
    • Asynchronization of chords
  20.  Voice
    • Singing
    • The tonal aspect:  pitch
    • The dynamic aspect:  intensity
    • The temporal aspect:  time
    • Time and stress:  rhythm
    • The qualitative aspect:  timbre and sonance
  21.  Principles of Guidance in Music
    • The problem
    • Paving the way
    • Reminiscent incidents
    • Principles of measurement and guidance
    • Sources of error in guidance procedures
  22.  Measures of Musical Talent
    • What can we measure?
    • Principles involved in the elementary battery of measures of musical talent
    • Criticisms of this approach
    • Purpose of the phonograph records and supplementary procedures
    • Reliability
    • The basis for rank order
    • The uses of these measures
  23.  Analysis of Talent in a Music School
    • Origin of the Eastman School experiment
    • Plan and purpose of the experiment
    • Classification
    • Representative profiles
    • Stability of the classification
    • Retests of adults and children
    • Bearing on success in the college music course
  24.  Analysis of Talent in the Public School
    • The Lincoln experiment
    • The Rochester service
    • Procedure in the guidance program
    • The training of teachers and supervisors
    • The organization of a guidance program for the public school
  25.  The Inheritance of Musical Talent
    • The nature of the inheritance of musical talent
    • Basic approaches now available
    • Possible ways of organizing investigation
    • The naturalist’s point of view
  26.  Primitive Music
    • Musical anthropology through phonophotography
    • Negro songs
  27.  The Development of Musical Skills
    • Control of pitch intonation
    • Control of intensity
    • Control of time and rhythm
    • The rhythm meter
    • Training for precision in rhythmic action
    • Control of timbre
    • General significance of specific training for skills
  28.  Musical Esthetics
    • Approaches to musical esthetics
    • Esthetics as a normative science
    • The musical message

Leave a Reply