The authors describe the symbolic meanings of music in general, of singing, and of playing an instrument, the piano. These meanings range from 'good or bad breast' to 'a masturbatory act'; they include the primal scene, the oral-cannibalistic feast, and the destruction (with manic excitement) of the object imagoes. Music is also thought of as an 'ideal' object because 'it is always there' and does not frustrate or abandon: it is the 'ideal breast' or the 'mother's voice'. 'Of all creative work, perhaps it is in artistic work that the most primitive fantasies are found. And probably it is in music that we find the most archaic preverbal contents … [because] it is the most abstract and least tangible or material of arts.' Therefore it is the most suitable medium for expression of the infant-mother, preverbal relationships.