The Seashore-Mursell Debate on the Psychology of Music Revisited 1

The published writings of Carl Seashore (1919, [1938] 1967, and his 29 articles in the Music Educators Journal during the period 1936-41) and James Mursell (1934, 1936, 1937, 1938a, 1938b, 1943, 1948) on the psychology of music and music education constituted a significant contribution to music education thought and practice in the mid-twentieth century. Mursell followed, reacted against, and responded to Seashore's work and, the similarities between them notwithstanding, their ideas diverged in important ways. Their differing views of the nature of musical experience provided bases for contrasting ideologies of music education.