A Paradigm for Research on Music Listening

Although music listening has been a subject of interest to the musician, music educator, and music psychologist almost since human traits began to be studied scientifically early in the twentieth century, studies of listeners' responses and attitudes have been irregular and unsystematic. The impetus behind them, furthermore, has been the personal curiosity of the investigators rather than the interest of the music field in general. The fact that the bulk of this research has been done by psychologists, moreover, has accounted for both its strengths and its weaknesses. Investigational techniques and methodology have been excellent, but since psychologists have not been deeply aware of musical problems and processes, some of the questions they have studied have been shallow or unimaginative. For listening research to be effective, it must be done by a combination musician-psychologist; but this combination has not occurred often enough to do more than scratch the surface of the