The work of Gestalt psychologist and art historian Rudolf Amheim offers valuable ideas for teachers and scholars of music. Two related examples will illustrate the value of his ideas. The first example, Arnheim's article "Perceptual Dynamics and Musical Expression,"' explains important aspects of "expressive meaning" in music. These aspects of expressive meaning have contributed to the teaching of music theory and to research in computer models of music cognition. An understanding of these aspects of expressive meaning also allows us to read the second example, a brief passage from his Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye,2 as a metaphor for understanding musical structure and a model for making music teaching more relevant to the artistic concerns of the practicing musician.