Clinical examples are offered to demonstrate ways in which music fulfils a broad range of adaptational functions. The origin of melody is traced back to

a form of play wherein potentially traumatic words are rendered nontraumatic. The Anlage for this play that promises mastery is the early chaos of sounds traumatically experienced by the infant. The author hypothesizes that early bodily movements are traumatic in that they are concomitant with tension states. Repetition, mastery, and familiarity by way of rhythmic motor movements are traced through maturational stages. The link between melody and rhythm is at once primitive and an expression of the highest synthesizing function of the mature ego.