72 



DISCOVERY 



sing easily, while another seems incapable of learning 

 to do either. It may be because the second person 

 is incapable of discriminating between small differ- 

 ences in pitch, that is, degree of acuteness of tone, 

 or he may be unable to remember music, althovigh he 

 hears it as' accurately as the other, or he may be 

 unable to sing because he cannot control the tension 

 of his vocal chords. These — power of pitch discrimina- 

 tion, tonal memory, and control of the pitch of the 

 voice — are examples of the simpler elements into 

 which musical ability may be analysed. 



Elements of Musical Talent 



Professor Seashore repudiates the idea of the exist- 

 ence of any one "musical faculty," and analyses 

 musical talent into twenty-five such simple elements. 

 These are the following : 

 I. Musical sensitivity. 



A. Simple forms of impression. 



1. Sense of pitch. 



2. Sense of intensity. 



3. Sense of time. 



4. Sense of extensity. 



B. Complex forms of appreciation. 



1. Sense of rhythm. 



2. Sense of timbre. 



3. Sense of consonance. 



4. Sense of volume. 

 II. Musical action. 



Natural capacity for skill in accurate and 

 musically expressive production of tones (vocal, 

 instrumental, or both) in : 



1. Control of pitch. 



2. Control of intensity. 



3. Control of time. 



4. Control of rhythm. 



5. Control of timbre. 



6. Control of volume. 



III. Musical memory and imagination. 



1. Auditory imagery. 



2. Motor imagery. 



3. Creative imagination. 



4. Memory span. 



5. Learning power. 



IV. Musical intellect. 



1. Musical free association. 



2. Musical power of reflection 



3. General intelligence. 



V. Musical feeling. 



1. Musical taste. 



2. Emotional reaction to music. 



3. Emotional self-expression in music. 

 Six of these investigations are of particular practical 



interest, since they can be repeated without special 



apparatus. These are the tests for : sense of pitch, 

 sense of intensity, sense of time, sense of consonance, 

 musical memory, and musical imagery. The first five 

 of these are supplied on gramophone records. Full 

 instructions as to Professor Seashore's method of 

 carrying out the last are to be found in Chapter XI 

 of his monograph.! gy j^j^g ^gg Qf these tests in schools, 

 it is claimed that the teacher is enabled to detect 

 those of his pupils who are deficient in the simple 

 qualities which make up musical talent, and also to 

 distinguish those especially gifted ones who may 

 develop exceptional musical ability if they are given 

 separate training. 



The method of representing the performance of any 

 individual in a given test is by his percentile rank, i.e. 

 by his probable .position in a group of a hundred 

 unselected persons whose order is that of their pro- 

 ficiency in the ability tested. For example, a person 

 who has 50 per cent, right in the pitch discrimination 

 test will have a percentile rank of o,- a person with 

 100 per cent, right will clearly rank as 100. The 

 percentile ranks of persons who have between 50 per 

 cent, and 100 per cent, right answers is given by tables 

 based on the results of a large number of previous 

 applications of the test. A person with 90 per cent, 

 right is found to stand eighty-sixth in his power of 

 pitch discrimination in a chance group of a hundred ; 

 with 60 per cent, right he would stand only third from 

 the bottom. 



How to Test a Person's Sense of Pitch 



Limitations of space make it impossible to discuss 

 all twenty-five of the researches into these elementary 

 capacities, so I wUl be content to describe in detail 

 one only — the investigation of the sense of pitch. 

 The pitch of a musical note depends on the number of 

 vibrations per second of the sound waves producing 

 it, the higher notes being produced by the sound waves 

 with a large number of vibrations per second. The 

 problem, therefore, is to discover by how many vibra- 

 tions per second a given note must be altered before the 

 person who is being tested can distinguish between 

 them. For this purpose, a standard tuning-fork 

 and one differing slightly from it in pitch were sounded 

 in quick succession, and the subject was required to 

 state whether the second tone was higher or lower 

 than the first. Different intervals of time between 

 the two forks were used, and an individual's power 

 of discrimination between two tones was taken to be 

 the interval of time between the standard and variable 



' Referred to in note at end of present article. 



'■■ Because 50 per cent, is the number he would have right 

 if his answers were determined by chance alone, i.e. if he 

 had no power at all of determining which of the two notes 

 sounded was the higher. 



