What is Musicality?

Frogman,

with all due respect and fully agreeing with the distinction you make between perceived emotion and emotion that is felt as well as apologies for being a nitpicking old curmudgeon, I still insist, that emotion is NOT in the music. It may be in the composer, who translates it into his score, it may be in the interpreter, who through his training, his artistry, his concept of the score and perhaps, but by no means always, by his being moved emotionally by the composer's score, translates it into sound, which again in the listener may or may not cause emotions. In a way, I don't like what I am saying, I love music, but I also try to stand for what I at least think is precise.

To be honest, it is only when I envisage this amazing chain of events, of how the magic of what is music evolves, that I stand in awe of the mystery what music is and what it can do to us.

Detlof wrote,

"HUH? You just said something, but it ain't musical. I must be deaf."

Do you by any chance have an English translation?

;-)

Cheers

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.