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HOW MUSIC INSPIRES ENERGY.
Leonard R. McWhood, who is a fellow
in psychology at Columbia University, is
also extremely interested in music. He
assists Professor
MacDowell
in the
musical department and his interest in
music, combined with his knowledge of
psychology, has led him to take up a com-
paratively new branch of study, which
may be called, the psychology of music.
To aid him in experimentation in his
special field, he has perfected an instru-
ment which records the degree of pleasure
or pain superinduced in a person by
various sounds.
Mr. McWhood has made other experi-
ments, which have enabled him to cal-
culate scientifically the energy developed
in man by music—especially martial
music. He has thus demonstrated that a
man inspired by the strains of the " Star
Spangled Banner" has his energy in-
creased by thirty-four per cent.
Mr.
McWhood is naturally in favor of having
plenty of brass bands accompany the army
of invasion to Cuba.
Mr. McWhood's first set of experiments
are based upon a principle in physiological
psychology.
There is a theory in this
science that when a person experiences
pleasure the tendency of muscular motion
is away from the body, while, when a
person is in a painful mental state, the
tendency of muscular motion is toward
the body.
Dr. Storring, of Leipsic, in making ex-
periments on this line, fed to the individ-
ual on whom he experimented cooking
salt, in order to induce the sensation of
pain. When he desired his subject to feel
pleasant he gave him raspberry juice.
This was certainly a delightfully German
method of experimentation.
Dr. Dear-
born and Mr. Spindler, of Harvard, in
making similar experiments, used odors.
But they found this method disadvan-
tageous. Mr. McWhood was the first to
employ music in this class of experiments.
The apparatus, which Mr. McWhood
calls the automatograph, is extremely sen-
sitive. It is, in fact, an elaborate modifi-
cation of the planchette, with a recording
mechanism attached.
The subject on
whom the experiment is to be made, sits a
little aside from a small table, resting his
arm on a bracket in such a way that his
hand is lightly placed upon a glass plate.
This glass plate lies upon a number of
balls, so that it moves to and fro in an-
swer to the most delicate muscular motion.
Attached to this glass plate is a long, fine
steel spring. This spring stands across a
sheet of paper, which, unwinding from
one roll as the experiment proceeds, is
wound up on another. At the centre of
the sheet a stylographic pen penetrates the
steel spring, and its point rests upon the
paper.
It is to this pen the rapid to and fro
movement of the glass plate under the
emotions of the person experimented on is
communicated by means of the steel
spring.
Therefore the tracings of this
pen upon the paper reproduce the delicate
muscular-motor motions of the hand which
THE MUSIC TRADE REVTRW
rests upon the plate, these motions of the
hand being induced by various kinds of
music. The visual record of the paper,
which to a layman would be a mere zigzag
line, is what the scientists call a "curve."
Hence, when a scientist wants to analyze
a man's feelings, all he has to do is to get
on to his curves.
Now, if the theory of muscular motion
induced by pleasure or pain is correct, the
person whose hand rests upon the glass
should, when he hears music which causes
him pleasure, move his hand away from
his body, and continue doing so until the
music either ceases altogether, or ceases to
afford him pleasure. Under such condi-
tions the zigzag line or curve should run
along over the paper in a decided upward
direction, and this is what actually occurs
in an overwhelming majority of the exper-
iments.
If, on the other hand, the music which
is played is distasteful to the listener, the
hand will move toward the body, bringing
the plate with it, which in turn draws the
steel band and the recording pen in the
same direction.
This woiild cause the
zigzag line or curve to tend downward
from a straight line drawn through the
centre of the paper. It is remarkable how
steady the upward or downward direction
of the line is in these experiments, and
also with what evenness the line or curve
continues along the centre of the paper
when a person displays absolute indiffer-
ence to the music he hears.
A set of diagrams which Mr. McWhood
has made on this delicate instrument,
bears out his theory admirably. Desiring
to get a good record of painful emotion,
he thought that possibly actual physical
pain would give the best results on the
diagram. Therefore, resting his hand on
the plate, he told the man who was assist-
ing him to stick pins into him. But the
man being afraid of hurting Mr. McWhood
too much, pricked him so slightly that in-
stead of experiencing pain, he was rather
amused at the man's caution. The result
on the diagram shows a slight upward
curve, but when the man, who was noth-
ing of a musician, pounded on the piano
at random, and much harder than Mr.
McWhood expected, Mr. McWhood's men-
tal pain was so great that it produced a
great sag on the diagram. This is one
of the latest experiments which Mr. Mc-
Whood has made.
Another experiment, made at the same
time, was also extremely interesting, as it
showed the emotional joy or exultation
produced by patriotic music.
Mr. Mc-
Whood, seating himself at the automato-
graph, hummed " T h e
Star Spangled
Banner," with the result that the curve
sailed up like a kite.
Even more interesting, however, are
certain experiments which Mr. McWhood
made to demonstrate the exhilarating ef-
fects of certain kinds of music upon physic-
al action. These experiments were made
with an instniment which is the invention
of Professor J. McKeen Cattell, who is at
the head of the psychological department •
of Columbia University. This is an ex-
tremely delicate apparatus for measuring
and recording fatigue.
Roughly de-
scribed, it consists of a ring attached to a
spring. The subject who is experimented
iipon, puts a finger through the ring and
begins pulling down the spring with the
single finger. As he does so, a pen re-
cords the length of each pull. Naturally
the lengths of pull decrease as the finger
becomes tired. At last the finger gets to
a point when it seems almost paralyzed,
and the zigzag line or curve, which has
been growing shorter and shorter, peters
out altogether.
The question which Mr. McWhood asked
himself was this: Will music make the
finger last longer? He not only found
that it did, but that music with a good
rhythmic swing to it made it last longer
than other music. While the subject with
whom the experiment was being made was
pulling at the ring, Mr. McWhood played
Grieg's " In der Heimath," with the result
that the man pulled the string once a sec-
ond for one hundred seconds..
The apparatus being made according to
a prearranged scale, it was figured out
that the man had, during those hundred
seconds, expended an amount of energy
sufficient to lift 1,500 pounds. To do this
he had worked as hard as he could. Yet
the same man, when Mr. McWhood played
"The Star Spangled Banner," gave a pull
on each rhythmic beat and was able, under
the inspiring influence of the music, to
keep it up so well that when the lifting
capacity developed was calculated it was
found to be over 2,000 pounds, or thirty-
four per cent, in excess of the result ob-
tained with the other piece of music.
" I think," said Mr. McWhood, com-
menting on these results, "that ninety
regiments, with ten brass bands, would be
worth more in a battle in Cuba than one
hundred regiments with no band. For if
we were to suppose that each man were
inspired by stirring music like ' The Star
Spangled Banner,' in the same ratio as
the man on whom I have experimented
and whose energy was increased thirty-
four per cent., the brass bands would de-
velop in these ninety regiments a physical
energy equal to that of one hundred and
twenty regiments."
*
The original orchestral score of Ros-
sini's "William Tell" has just been
acquired for the Library of the Paris
Conservatoire.
The
manuscript
was
found by the well-known collector M.
Charles Malherbe in the hands of a seller
of second-hand books, and it was boiight
for the Conservatoire at the very fair price
of 7,000 francs.
The same celebrated
Library, thanks to the generosity of Mme.
Viardot-Garcia, likewise possesses the
original MS. of Mozart's " Don Giovanni."
*
William Gericke will resume his old
post as conductor of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra next season, succeeding Emil
Paur. Gericke is one of the ablest foreign
conductors and had much to do with the
creation of the Boston Symphony—that
splendid orchestral body that has afforded
us all so much pleasure by its delightful
playing.