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What is Musicality?

Hello fellow music lovers,

I am upgrading my system like a lot of us who follow Audiogon. I read a lot about musicality on Audiogon as though the search for musicality can ultimately end by acquiring the perfect music system -- or the best system that one can afford. I really appreciate the sonic improvements that new components, cables, plugs and tweaks are bringing to my own system. But ultimately a lot of musicality comes from within and not from without. I probably appreciated my Rocket Radio and my first transistor radio in the 1950s as much I do my high-end system in 2010. Appreciating good music is not only a matter of how good your equipment is. It is a measure of how musical a person you are. Most people appreciate good music but some people are born more musical than others and appreciate singing in the shower as much as they do listening to a high-end system or playing a musical instrument or attending a concert. Music begins in the soul. It is not only a function of how good a system you have.

Sabai
sabai
czarivey
5,922 posts
 
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.
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Trying to dissect musicality is like trying to dissect love. We enjoy talking about it but, in the end, the talk does not encompass or define the real thing. The description is not the described. The real thing is elusive and mysterious.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Cassettes are musical, CDs are unmusical. Mystery solved.
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Czarivey,
what about Jazz? I love classical music, but I find musicality in many other forms and cultures as well and I don´t think, that I am alone in this.
Menahem Pressler, world famous pianist and leader of the Beaux Arts Trio had the highest respect for Oscar Peterson for example. Friedrich Gulda loved and played jazz, just to name two who were classical musicians.
czarivey
5,922 posts
 
Detlof, I mostly listen to jazz, but nevertheless, in general, classically trained musician is able to retrieve the best possibilities of instrument one plays. There are lots of classically trained musicians in jazz with improvisational talents and there are also pure talents in jazz who started just playing(Joey DeFrancesco), but still seeking the ways to improve either taking lessons or enrolling into the higher musical education which mostly not the case with garage and rock(XSmall to Small in terms of musicality:-))
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