The effects of listening to the various kinds of music were touched on in Chapter v, but not specifically in relation to education. Melē, melodies or tunes, are of three kinds: (A)ethical, i.e. expressive of ēthos, character; (B) active, praktika, encouraging us to perform certain actions; (C) producing in us certain powerful excitements, emotions or inspirations (enthousiasmos). Music can confer three benefits; (a) to promote education; (b) to ‘purify’ or ‘purge’ emotion; (c) to provide relaxation in leisure.
Kind (A) is obviously linked to (a), and (C) to (b); but (B)and (c), which seem not to be connected, are not discussed at any length. The differences between (A), (B)and (C) are perhaps less sharp than may appear at first sight: in (A), the characters portrayed by the music affect our own, and so indirectly and ultimately affect our actions; in (B), we are presumably likewise stimulated to action, but immediately (e.g. to march, by a marching tune); and in (C) the emotions aroused in us can lead to movements and actions of the body, as in ‘orgiastic’ ritual dancing. In fact, all three kinds of tune lead or can lead to action.
The final paragraph, rather unexpectedly, introduces the further consideration that different age-groups require different harmoniai, modes. A harmonia is a ‘way of fitting together’, an ‘ordered combination or construction of notes’, in effect a particular ‘style’ or ‘mode’ of music (see S. Michaelides, The Music of Ancient Greece, An Encyclopaedia, London, 1978, pp. 127–9). Since Aristotle’s remarks on the modes in this paragraph are not entirely easy to square with what he has said earlier in this chapter and in others, this paragraph has sometimes been suspected of being by another hand (see C. Lord, ‘On Damon and music education’, Hermes, 106 (1978), pp. 32–43, esp. 38ff.). However that may be, it is here that his discussion of education tails off, leaving a great many topics unexamined. On this ragged ending of the Politics, E. Barker well remarks (The Politics of Aristotle, Oxford 1946, p.352), ‘Aristotle’s notes stopped at this point. This is just what happens to a set of notes or a course of lectures, as many lecturers can testify; and there is no more to be said. We cannot apply the standards of a printed book to the manuscript of a set of notes.’
1341619 That being so, we must investigate further this matter of modes and rhythms. Are we, for educational purposes, to make use of all the modes and rhythms or should we make distinctions? And will the same basis of classification serve for those who work at music for educational purposes, or must we lay down some other? Certainly music is, as we know, divided into melody-making and rhythm, and we must not omit to consider what effect each of these has on education, and whether we are to rate more highly music with a good melody, or music with a good rhythm. We believe that these topics are well and fully dealt with both by some modern musicians, and by others whose approach is philosophical but who have actual experience of musical education; so we shall leave those who want detailed treatment of the several questions to seek advice in that quarter. Here let us give a generalized1 account and simply refer to the usual typology.
1341b32 We accept the classification of melodies as given by some philosophers: ethical, active, and exciting; and they regard the modes as being by nature2 appropriate to each of these – one to one melody, one to another. But we say that music ought to be used to confer not one benefit only but many: (i) to assist education, (ii) for cathartic3 purposes (here I use the term cathartic without further qualifications; I will treat it more fully in my work on Poetics),4 and (iii) to promote civilized pursuits, by way of relaxation and relief after tension. Clearly, then, we must make use of all the modes, but we are not to use them all in the same manner: for education we should use those which are most ethical, whereas for listening to others performing we should accept also the most active and the most emotion-stirring. Any feeling which comes strongly to some souls exists in all others to a greater or less degree – pity and fear, for example, but also excitement. This is a kind of agitation by which some people are liable to be possessed; it may arise out of religious melodies, and in this case it is observable that when they have been listening to melodies that have an orgiastic5 effect on the soul they are restored as if they had undergone a curative and purifying3 treatment. Those who are given to feeling pity or fear or any other emotion must be affected in precisely this way, and so must other people too, to the extent that some such emotion comes upon each. To them all inevitably comes a sort of pleasant purgation3 and relief. In the same way ‘active’ melodies bring men an elation which is not at all harmful.
1342a16 Hence these are the modes and melodies whose use ought to be permitted to those who enter contests in music for the theatre. Now in the theatre there are two types of audience, the one consisting of educated free men, the other of common persons, drawn from the mechanics, hired workers and such-like. For the relaxation of this latter class also competitions and spectacles must be provided. But as their souls have become distorted, removed from the condition of nature, so also some modes are deviations from the norm, and some melodies have high pitch and irregular colouring.6 Each group finds pleasure in that which is akin to its nature. Therefore permission must be given to competitors before this class of audience to use the type of music that appeals to it.
1342a28 But for educational purposes, as we have said, we must use tunes, and modes too which have ethical value. The Dorian mode, as we mentioned earlier.7 is in that category, but we must also admit other modes if they have passed the scrutiny of those who combine the pursuit of philosophy with a musical education. It is to be regretted that Socrates in the Republic8 singled out the Phrygian mode to be added to the Dorian – and this in spite of having rejected altogether, from among the instruments, the use of the pipes. Yet among the modes the Phrygian has exactly the same effect as the pipes among instruments: both are orgiastic5 and emotional, for all Bacchic frenzy and all similar agitation are associated with the pipes more than with other instruments, and such conduct finds its appropriate expression in tunes composed in the Phrygian mode more than in those composed in other modes. (This is shown by poetry: the dithyramb, for example, is universally regarded as Phrygian. Experts in this field point to numerous examples, notably that of Philoxenus,9 who tried to compose The Mysians in the Dorian mode, but could not do so: the very nature of his material forced him back into the Phrygian, the proper mode.) But about the Dorian mode all are agreed that it is the steadiest, and that its ethical character is particularly that of courage. Further, since we approve of that which is midway between extremes and assert that that is something to be aimed at, and since the Dorian, in relation to the other modes, does by nature possess this characteristic, it is clear that Dorian tunes are more suitable than the others for the education of the young.
1342b17 Two things we keep constantly in view – what is possible and what is appropriate; and it is possible and appropriate action that every set of men must undertake. But these two categories of things also are different for different ages. For instance, those who go through age have grown weary do not find it easy to sing in the high-pitched modes; but for such men nature offers the low-pitched ones. Hence once again some of the musical experts rightly take Socrates to task because he rejected the low-pitched modes as useless for education; he regarded them as having the same effect as drink, not as intoxicating them but as lacking energy. (Intoxication produces, rather, a Bacchic frenzy.) So looking to future years too, when we are older, we must go in for that kind of mode and that kind of melody – as well as any other mode of a type which, because of its power to combine orderliness with educative influence, is suitable for the age of childhood (the Lydian would seem to be a case in point). It is clear, then, that we have these three goals to aim at in education – the happy mean, the possible, and the appropriate.