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African musical culture, to which Blacking dedicated years of research, conceives music as a collection of manifestations and not just instrumental music: this recalls the ancient Greek concept of mousik¯e. Cf. Baily (, ) who found that in certain African languages there is one term to indicate music and dance: in the Igbo language, for example, the term ‘egwu’ indicates music, song, dance and drama, considered inseparable elements of a musical performance.  Musical education of sensibility neutral from a moral point of view.

In a–b, describing the correct execution of Pyrrhic dance, Plato speaks of to eutonon. To be ‘well tense’ in the physical sense, like the strings of an instrument, is the movement of the body following a straight course (euthypheres). In a moral sense this correct tension translates into the representation of good souls and bodies (below, pp. –). The passage offers us the opportunity to evaluate the application of the notions of tension and relaxation to the body and the psych¯e. In this connection, Rocconi’s observations (, ), which are also based on the passages in which Plato alludes to the tension and the relaxation of nerves (Phaed.

To de not as ‘the one’ (element) . . the other . . ’ (hence, the rational and the spirited) but ‘on one side . . on the other’ and to mean that the passage refers to the work of music and gymnastics on the two elements considered together not separately. But it seems difficult to me to think that to men . . to de does not indicate the two elements in a context in which it is actually the two elements that are being considered (see, in particular, Socrates’ previous point, e–, and successive, a–).