SCIENCE REPORT ON MUSICALITY

SCIENCE REPORT The Times 13 October 1969

PSYCHOLOGY

Test to pick out top musicians

By Nature-Times News Service

A means may be at hand for picking out people of world-class musical ability. A system of psychological tests has been shown to distinguish unerringly between the best musicians and those of lesser talents.

The tests have been applied by Mr. I. V. Bruton-Simmonds, a psychologist based in Johannesburg, to two groups of musicians. In one group were 15 musicians of international reputation, and the second group comprised performers judged to possess lower musicality.

All the musicians in the first group gained high scores on the tests for rhythm, pitch, discrimination of loudness, and tonal memory. But each of the members in the second group scored below the critical minimum on at least one of the tests.

The two groups of musicians were comparable both in the length of their training and in technical accomplishment. This suggests that the basic weaknesses revealed by the tests cannot be eradicated by training.

Although only a few top musicians have been tested so far, it seems that strong aptitudes in rhythm, tonal memory and the discrimination of pitch and loudness are essential to high musicality. Judgement of timbre and of time are not so important, Mr. Bruton-Simmonds says.

He reports that high musicality is possessed by very few musicians. In eight years of testing he has found it to be “statistically insignificant” among music teachers and music students.

The hardest part of the research lay in persuading musicians to take the test. In the event, all were promised that their names would not be disclosed. The system of tests is known as the Seashore Measures after the psychologist who devised them.

Source: Psychologia Africana; vol. 13, p. 50; 1969.