1

the way
to

enjoy
good

JAMES E. PAYNE

music

This article is dedicated to those
who would like to enjoy good
music—but don’t; to the martyred
music haters who live in music-loving
families; and to wives who yearn to
convert their husbands to Bach, Bee-
thoven and Brahms.

Several years ago I became inter-
ested in this problem,- Why do many
otherwise normal people dislike clas-
sical music? Psychologists have not,
apparently, studied the matter thor-
oughly. Casual discussions with con-
firmed music haters revealed only
the already known fact: They did
not like music. They found it either
boring or infuriating, but they did
not know why any more than I did.

The problem interested me so
much that I decided to set up an
experiment. Eighty-three men and
women were chosen at random in the
community where I lived. Their ages
varied from eighteen to sixty-seven;
the group included students, minis-
ters, college professors, grocers, ste-

nographers and housewives. The
only rigid requirement was that they
either were indifferent to music or *
actually disliked it.

They met one evening each week
in groups of ten to twenty over a *
period of six months. The meeting
place was a large room equipped
with an amplifier and a collection of
classical records. Each session con-
sisted of thirty minutes of music, a
short intermission, another half hour
of music, and a discussion period.

At the end of the second meeting
of each group I offered an honorable
discharge to anyone who wanted to
withdraw. Only four of the eighty-
three availed themselves of the op-
portunity. Three more dropped out
later for various reasons, but the re-
maining seventy-six continued to the
end.

I spent most of the first session
watching the reaction of the subjects
as the music was played. I had delib-
erately chosen the lovely but intricate