Psychology and Music

The relationship between psychology and music is characteristic of that between a new science and an established discipline. Western music theory has a very old tradition, dating at least from the time of Pythagoras; and the philosophical underpinnings of this tradition that were established in ancient times still exist today. Most characteristic of this tradition is its rationalism. In contrast with the scientific disciplines, the development of music theory over the last few hundred years has not been characterized by a growth in the empirical method. Rather, while composers have constantly experimented with new means of expression, music theorists have on the whole been system builders who sought to justify existing compositional practice or to prescribe new practice on numerological grounds. Further, when an external principle has been invoked as an explanatory device, most commonly such a principle was taken from physics. The concept of music as essentially the product of our processing mechanisms and therefore related to psychology has only rarely been entertained. There are several reasons why this rationalistic stance was adopted, most of which no longer apply. One reason was a paucity of knowledge concerning the nature of sound. It is understandable that the inability to characterize a physical stimulus should have inhibited the development of theories concerning how this stimulus is processed. A related reason was poor stimulus control, which made experimentation difficult. A third reason was the lack of appropriate mathematical techniques with which to study probabilistic phenomena. However, another reason, which is still with us today, lies in the peculiar nature of music itself. There are no external criteria for distinguishing between music and nonmusic, or between good music and bad music. Further, it is clear that how we perceive music depends at least to some extent on prior experience. Thus the relevance of psychological experimentation to music theory requires careful definition. In this chapter I first review major developments in music theory from an historical point of view. Following this I explore various issues that are currently being studied both by music theorists and by psychologists. Finally, I discuss the role of psychology in music theory.