This, , was the situation until gestalt theory posed the radical question: is it atall the case that when I hear a melody I really hear the sum of individual notes, atleast as a primary basis? Is it not perhaps the other way around, that what 1 havetaken up in me, the manner in which I perceive the single tone, is that of a partdetermined by the structure of the whole? in other words, what the melody givesme is not built up (by some added aids) secondarily out of the sum of the individualparts, but what ta kes place in the individual part radically depends upon the whole.Is it not clear that the flesh and blood of a certain note in a melody depends uponthe part it plays in that melody? that B as a leading tone of C is quite different B as the tonic? that the role and function of data in a whole belong to the life andessence of the data?