PSYCHOLOGY

FOR
MUSICIANS
By: PERCY C. BUCK
A book report submitted to: Prof.
Leticia G. del Valle
Submitted by:
MARY THERESE A. DISINI-PITOGO

The book does not pretend to be a treatise on Psychology. It is an

attempt to help musicians more especially the music-teachers amongst them,
present and future to realize that psychologists have many suggestions to
offer them, both interesting and important, which can be applied to the Art of
Music in all its branches.

Such an attempt ideally, should obviously be made by one who is both a

trained psychologist and a trained musician. The author holds a masteral
degree in Music and has taught in the Royal College of Music in London and in
Dublin and an amateur psychologist.

He talks about psychology as an important part of a teacher; not only as a

requirement in colleges, universities or institutions but a valuable subject given
a kind of scheme or logical connection in the facts they assimilate. He also
imparts techniques for performers and real discernment of interest, will and
appreciation. The words that he used are not as technical and documented as
the original one which he wrote in 1939. When he rewrote this book, it was all
out of his memory given the fact that all his writings were destroyed during the
war.

There are several interesting chapters in the book. Parts of it are intended
for a performer, some for the music teacher and still some both for a musician
as a whole with regards to dealing with the behavioral patterns and moods.

He starts by defining Psychology as the science of mind because it is in

constant contact with a students mind. It is a discovery of how the mind works.
Every musician, composer, performer or educator has to make his appeal to the
minds of his fellow musicians. There is the directing mind which is called the

Ego and the one being directed refers to Me. Buck fused the Ego and the Me
into what he calls the Consciousness. The subconscious mind on the other
hand is being defined as the things that we store in our minds when we fall
asleep. It is like an altered state, yet very much still a part of our waking or
awakened mind. There are three distinguishing functions of the mind: thinking,

willing and feeling. These functions are of equal importance unlike other earlier
psychologists who put importance only to perceiving and thinking. The feeling
and willing are important as well and that most of the minds motives may be
wholly unconscious.

The chapter on REACTION has four classes: Stimulus, Sensation,

Perception and Concept, this quartet serves as an excellent introduction to

Psychology, especially to a musician because it describes what happens in all
circumstances, from the simplest to the most complicated. It deals about the

instinctive reaction, acquired reaction and the reflex action. Instinctive reaction
is somewhat sophisticated. It comes from the moment of our birth. How we
react by using our instincts, without previous training. It is a native and natural
reaction. Acquired reaction is being educated. It is not native. One learns from
standards, from formal schooling to get this type of reaction. Reflex action on
the other hand includes all those purely bodily movements which are performed
and are normally outside the control of the mind. It is the result of a kinesthetic
experience.

Habit and acquired reaction are practically synonymous because every

acquired reaction forms or becomes a habit. Habit is automatic. Actions,
physical movements and also mental stimulus become a habit when one
repeats the act of doing regularly, thus becoming automatic. Doing things
automatically also means doing it carelessly; careless in a way that it becomes

unconsciously done or without thinking of it already and relying on your

nervous system and muscles to coordinate such activity, whilst your mind is
carefree. There are three stages:

a. Cognition means being aware, it is in contact with the five senses of

the body.
b. Affect means that the experience has an impact to you in some way.
c. Conation is the tendency to act with a purpose as the result of your
feeling.

When working at technique, whether muscular or mental, Buck says that

there always comes a point where we have done enough. If we continue
because of compulsion, we shall get no further benefit. Psychologists would say
that we have reached Saturation point. It is like an empty container, you can
only fill it up to the brim, after which the contents will over pour, getting
wasted at the end. Performers or just plain human beings can only derive to a
certain point or limit, else stretching it on the danger zone becomes unhealthy.
In mental work, over doing it would lead either to boredom or brain-fag. The
mind has had enough of that particular activity in a day. It can be maintained or

can persist or persevere. In muscular work, the red lamp there is called
tiredness. It is a good point that this chapter also suggests helpful tips for a
performer by economizing muscular actions to avoid tiredness and for the
music teacher not to expect too much from students to improve. Given ample
time, muscles will settle down and conform according to the used habit, and
also the assimilation of the lessons and methods being taught.

Mental images are the outcome of the experience of our senses. Image is
connected with sight and there is also a connection to the other senses when
the image would be recalled aurally and mentally or even vocally. For example,
given a piece like Beethovens Moonlight Sonata, one person can remember the
1st chord which is C#minor and can hum it (vocal). Another person can recall
the phrase, time signature, title and opus number (visual. And still another
pianist can remember it through the form and structure, where it develops and
where is the transition (mental).

Pure ideas on the other hand are more elusive than mental images, partly
because it is objective; it is based on several examples to be objective and thus
becoming pure. The difference of a mental image from pure idea is that: you

have an idea of a mental image but you can not have a mental image out of an
idea.

We can only think of one thing at a time, only one idea can be focal in our
mind. The greatest hindrance would be a cluttered mind or several ideas inside
the head. Psychologists put it like this: our minds are focused on one thing, but
there are at all times a few other things on the threshold of our consciousness,
squeezing their way into the focus, and a large number of other things at the
boundary, only waiting to jump in at the center of things.

Early psychologists had a great belief that in order for a child to be

educated properly, a teacher should be able to find out or discover what the
natural interests of children are. In this way, the child learns faster and better.
But Buck points out three considerations which the early psychologists missed.
First consideration is the age when deciding or asking the interest. Of course in
the younger years of a student, or as a child, one can be interested in
superficial things and ideas coming from peers. Yet as they grow up, their
plans, decisions and interests change, becoming more stable and mature.

The second consideration he stresses is for music teachers to give their

best in their work and to work properly. Working properly means to teach even
in uneventful areas, or even to children whose musicality is not much
developed. It is a great challenge for teachers to be able to work on rough
ground and improvising musical instruments and creating various methods
and materials. A maxim for this would be: it is your duty to be interesting. This
may seem hard to those sensitive and shy people who are conscious of a
difficulty in winning and holding attention. To hold a students/classs interest,
a teacher should be interested first with the topic or the lesson. Horace, the
Roman poet was once asked by his students how can they also touch mans
heart through poetry, and he answered, It is by showing them also that you
had touched your own. Buck clears out that it is not morality he is emphasizing
but the psychological fact that if once you condone a bad habit or bad work
relations or work ethics, an educator falls in the pit and becomes a contagious
disease.

The last consideration focuses on the performer. It is not only the

virtuosity of a performer or the powerful technique he has acquired which

draws the audience to listen and become interested. Being interesting is BEING;

IPSO FACTO: by the very fact itself. The totality of the performer includes not
only the things he has learned about music but also the experience and the
many great ideas wherever and whenever one can find, with colleagues, peers,
students and other great artists.

There are two kinds of Attention the Spontaneous and deliberate or

volitional. Spontaneous is said to be either primitive or intellectual. An object

appears less appealing to your senses or to your mind, labeling it as subjective
or objective. Deliberate or volitional is the power of concentrating on a thing
not in itself natively. According to psychologists, it is acquirable.

To catch the students attention, a teacher should be versatile and ready

to improvise when the need arises. Always be prepared to switch to something
which employs the senses. A teacher should also challenge the intelligence of
the students; making them find out rather than telling them the concept or
topic. Have them discover and become critical music thinkers. The cure when
the natural interest of a student is aroused by undesirable things is by grafting
on an over-riding interest and by gratification.

Buck shares two kinds of MEMORY: recognition and recall. Recognition is

sometimes called memory proper. It occurs when an idea presents itself, and
we recognize that we have met with it before, or when we meet an object and
ideas occurs previously. Recall happens when we search in our minds for
something, and the idea comes up to the surface; often making an apparently
instantaneous appearance, but always chronologically subsequent to the first
moment of search. Buck also provides suggestions on how to develop memory
skills, especially for performers.

There are several points in connection with memory which Buck thinks
helpful for an individual.

1. You can not improve the retentiveness with which you are born. But you
can improve your powers of memorization by developing your association
systems.
2. Improvement in one association-system does not affect another.
Association-system is when you connect or link a certain word to an
event, to your senses or to an experience.
3. Interest of supreme importance.

4. Artificial aids to memory are not always to be despised.

APPERCEPTION deals with new things, interpreted based on previous ideas,

by arranging the ideas in groups, on some principle connection and
relationship. These groups or clusters, or nuclei of ideas are called

Apperception-masses. The first important point in apperception is when a new

idea is presented in our minds it tries to find immediately which group it
belongs. Second point is, when a new idea found its group, it is deemed to
modify our conceptions.

The deeper importance of apperception lies in its implications. There are

three:

1. Stereotyped apperception-masses. It creates a danger as we grow older.

The present terms and ideas becomes part of the past as years pass by.
The solution is to keep apperception-masses fluid and assimilative to go
with the flow of new ideas.
2. Music teachers and musicians are encouraged to further the cause of
music to students. To build up apperception-masses, helping the
students to discover something new day to day. To discover that there is

something great in music which does not deny them of the qualities they
look for, but keeping the qualities in proportion and in proper place.
3. Consideration of ALL IDEAS LEADS TO ACTION. Every action will depend
on the character, quality and quantity of ideas you have gathered
together in your apperception-masses.

A teacher has many duties. One is to attempt to bring the pupil to the point
of interest by arriving at the flashpoint, the gist of the things you say.
EXPLANATION has two kinds objective and subjective. Objective explanation is
little more than imparting information, it is the typical or the usual type. The
subjective explanation is based on the subject itself. The teacher tends to
answer it according to what is written on the book, not going beyond the topic.

THE MAP OF PSYCHOLOGY four sides of man:

Sides

Action

Aim

Means

Physical

The body

Reliability

Habit

Intellectual

Thinking

Wisdom

Understanding

Aesthetic

Feeling

Happiness

Control

Moral

Conscience

Character

Love of truth

EDUCATION can mean two things: Knowledge and Understanding, or

Learning and Apperception, or Science and Philosophy. To the Greeks,

education meant training and control in the four sides: Physical, Intellectual,

Aesthetic, Moral. Buck compares German music education from British music
education. German music education focuses primarily on intellectual, followed
by the aesthetics, next is the physical and last is moral. While British music
education starts importantly with physical and moral, intellectual is subsidiary
and aesthetics is completely ignored. That explains why there are really great
master German musicians and composers until now.

The real aim of those who teach any branch or Art should be not merely
to produce a select few who will paint or play better because of our teaching,
but to awaken and stir the imagination of the whole body; that is our only true
justification for pleading for Art in Education.