Max Meyer and the Psychology of Music

Abstract

ions. .. . Do not contradict [this] forecast . . . by pointing to the crowds which fill the metropolitan concert rooms. .. . How many pretending to enjoy the music succeed in this pretense because their neighbors pretend no less? The naked in a society of the naked knows that he is safest when making the least fuss about the nakedness of the others who like him pretend to be richly clothed in musical understanding. It is interesting to note that Meyer rejected a nativistic explanation of rhythm: During the nineteenth century there was among psychologists much metaphysical speculation about rhythm, which was supposed to be one of the properties of the human soul and to help to establish man's superiority over the animals. . . . Psychologists used to think that certain rhythms were inborn and others did not really deserve to have their existence asserted .... The practical, the onlyproblem for the modern musician consists in an answer to the question: How does one acquire skill in easily executing various groups by greatest emphasis on a single one of the elements. We can profit, for answering this question, from observation of the grouped motions acquired by infants. In his Psychology of the Other-One (1921, pp. 347ff.) Meyer had described his technique for teaching unusual rhythms to adults and his observations in North Africa of five-beat music determined by the movements of a processional dance. Meyer gave his The Musician's Arithmetic the subtitle: Drill Problems for an Introduction into the Scientific Study of Musical Composition, and warned prospective readers (p. 5), Since a drill course without a teacher is virtually an impossibility, the question is very pertinent: Where can the pupil who desires to learn from this text find a comThis content downloaded from 157.55.39.59 on Mon, 17 Oct 2016 04:48:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms