What is Musicality?

Detlof, I think I see where you are coming from now. What I think you mean is that music, on the page, is nothing without the performer(s) to bring it to life, and you are also saying that it is the performer who imparts emotion to it. Yet, you also say that the composer can translate emotion into his score. Here is where I am not certain you can have that both ways. I think it is clear that very often a composer is intending to project a definite, specific emotion through the music. So in this sense, emotion is indeed part of the music, and this is what Frogman is saying in his post.

Learsfool,

Yes of course. I do not discount what you point out. As in all art, in poetry, in painting, and in music, which we talk about here, there can be emotion transmitted from artist to recipient. What fascinates me is, that the medium of transmission per se is dead. It is our mind, soul, psyche, "us", which in a sense put our emotion back into what we hear, see or read. We then call the medium emotional, because it triggers something in us, which you rightly say, may be intended by the composer as well as the interpreter of his/her score.
You put the emphasis of this process on the medium, I on "us". We're probably both half right.
But I'll stop now flogging a horse which is half dead. We're already way out of what this thread intended.

Geoffkait,

I am at a perdition. I ever motorise Google's translator.
My nativity mouthing is a subdialekt of Klingonian.
Many Cheerleaders to you too.

detlof

Sabay,

apologies, won't do it again. At least it's not intellektual, I think, probably not even particularly funny, but I just could not help myself. The music was too emional and I too full of good wine.

****I stand in awe of the mystery what music is and what it can do to us.****

I think that says it all. It is mysterious; and certainly re what (and how) it does to us.

****What fascinates me is, that the medium of transmission per se is dead.****

I suppose; and we are probably saying much the same thing. Music, in a score or recorded in some medium needs a recipient (listener) with some degree of intellect and capability of feeling emotions. I will say that I was always amazed when my pet parakeet would sing along only to Mozart :-). I personally like the mystery of it all and sometimes our search for precise answers causes us to lose a little bit of the romance and emotion of it all.

In my original OP from 2010 I was not so concerned about the quality of reproduction. Since then, my system has evolved to a much higher level. It provides much more listener satisfaction than it did back then. As a result, I have come to appreciate how much the quality of a good audio system adds to enjoyment of the music.

Learsfool,

But, of course, music is far more than a language. It is processed by the brain in a unique way. For instance, lyrics are not processed by the brain as words. They are processed as part of a musical whole.

And, of course, there is an intellectual side to music. But that is not what most of us are concerned about when we listen.

Frogman,

As you rightly point out, much of what we perceive musically is dictated by our own personality. To that we can add our mood at the moment and our personal memories. What is felt and evoked in one person may not be the same as what is felt and evoked in another. Just as we cannot know how each person feels when he tastes vanilla we cannot know how each person reacts under the skin to any given musical piece.

Detlof,

When all is said and done, music does indeed remain a mystery. As it should.

Let musicality be a measuring factor of Music. You can't define any units of measure similar to kilogram or meters per second, but rather find it as a combination of scales, notes, rhythm(s) intervals, chords, harmonic maneuvers, sophistication, level of challenge of performer or band or orchestra.
In general as an example, we can subdivide to three sizes just like we often used to see t-shirts in the department store: Small, Medium, Large, XLarge, XX, etc.
Size will depend on most of factors mentioned and combined above. The largest musicality usually found in classical music and the best musicians usually classically trained.