Psychology of Music

1911

Carl Stumpf (1848–1936)

In the nineteenth century, Berlin was the center of the new German colonial empire, and it was there that the study of music from around the world had its greatest support. Later, as the modern disciplines of anthropology and psychology developed, the study of music and culture was considered within the scope of both disciplines. It was Carl Stumpf, a philosopher and psychologist, who established the psychology of music as a scientific field. Stumpf had already published his landmark study of auditory perception when he turned to the study of ethnomusicology, beginning a scientific journal, Beiträge zur Akustik und Musikwissenschaft, in 1898.

His landmark volume, The Origins of Music (1911), was based on more than twenty-five years of research on psychology, music, and culture. Stumpf offered an account of how music originated and discussed all the extant theories of music as well as the history of musical instruments. The core of the book is his cross-cultural analysis of music from around the world. His point was to demonstrate the basic psychological principles of how musical tones are organized. The book became the foundation volume for comparative musicology and paved the way for the modern discipline of ethnomusicology.

After he took a position in Berlin, Stumpf began collecting samples of music from around the world, which was remarkable given the comparatively limited technology of the time. He established the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv in 1900 to house his collection of Edison cylinders (the earliest commercial recording device), which he had gathered from travelers. This became one of the world’s great collections of music.

As a scientific field, the psychology of music found a home in many countries beyond Germany. In America, Carl Seashore, one of the first scientific psychologists, developed an extensive program of tests for musical aptitude. The Seashore Measures of Musical Talent became the standard assessment for entry into many of America’s best schools of music.

SEE ALSO Gestalt Psychology (1912), [B = f(P, E)] = The Lifespace (1936)

A 1777 copy of the so-called “Bologna Mozart” by an unknown artist. The Viennese composer, who lived between 1756 and 1791, is among the most enduringly popular of all classical composers.