Gregm, thanks for responding. I feel you make sense in wishing to exclude subjective and situational factors as regards this question. Although they do, I believe, play a role, we will not get anywhere if we just concentrate on those. So I think you point out the right way for us to proceed, in order to get some meaningful answers to this question. |
Thankyou for your kind words, 3728slingshot, I heartily agree with you, that without an imprint, often refreshed, of the live event in our mind, heart and soul, we cannot really discern a system's "musicality" . However, also live musical events are not always "musical", as you know well. They are not, if - I can only say this clumsily - the spirit inherent in the composition is not conveyed, the rythm and the tempi, the "colours" soemhow don't feel right....Regards, |
Gregm, this is a great idea. I'll have a bit of time over Easter and will try to get a synopsis of the above opinions and post it here. Regards, |
Yes Gregm, I will do as you suggest. But I still need a little time. Just let me tell you now, that there is much food for thought for me in all of the above posts and that I am also deeply moved by them. Next to enjoying and sometimes enviously marveling at the astuteness of the thinking, I am above all moved by the love and the passion for music which shines through all of your posts. I feel profoundly happy and also honoured to be able to find myself amongst you here, this especially after in time I felt my sensibilities somewhat bruised by all the unpleasant bickering going on elsewhere. I live in a country, where people are pretty close and introvert, so audiophila is a bit of a lonely thing there. So stumbling across Audigon was a lucky stroke for me. Hence: Thank you to you all, not only for responding so in- and extensively but also just for being there. Regards, |
I want to thank you all for your fascinating inputs and I wish you good and restful days, hopefully with a "musical" system. I originally thought, I would collect all your posts, take the central idea from each of them and in reporting about it, try to come closer to a definition of musicality for all our benefit. To tell the truth, I haven't got the energy for it right now. I am down with flue, the hearing is impended, the mood subdued. But I'll be back with this question. Warm regards and thanks to all! |
Katharina, Frogman, thankyou! You've tought me something. I realise now, that hi-fi as a hobby has indeed to be strictly separated from the experience of actively listening to music. It's quite obvious to me, that tweaking my system, placing speakers, considering the pro and cons of equipment, the hobby part in fact, is a means to an end and no more than that. The end would be the musical experience. Without a knowledge of the real gestalt of music through listening to live music in its many forms as often as possible, how will I ever be able to know in which direction to tweak my system to? Memory is closely linked with emotionality and if I am deeply moved by a live performance say of the Alban Berg Quartet playing Schubert's "Death and the Maiden", there will be an engram in me of how a string quartet sounds with all its tonal, dynamic and rythmic nuances. The more live musical performances "get to me", the more an inner, probably unconscious knowledge will be built up through the years, about how a system should sound. So building a system and later tweaking it, is in a way a "remembering", a reemerging of the music's gestalt, which has been dormant in me, until the system begins to "remind" me. Once that has been achieved, I can tweak actively, to get say the sound of the cello, the viola and the violins, their rythms, phrasings, interplay and dynamics from ppp to fff plus their spacing of course as close to the gestalt's engram as is humanly possible. I might not be able to do without "audiophile" software of high recording quality at this stage to get closer to my goal. Here anyway, I will rather be listening to the system not to to the music. Once I'm through with that however, I will be able to do exactly what Katharina has told us about: Enjoy a more than mediocre recording of high musical quality and be moved by it, because even then the system lets some of the gestalt of the performance come through. Maybe the benchmark for the "musicality" of a system lies just here ! Thanks again and regards, |
Ozfly, thanks for your beautiful post. To me you have said it all and have in fact made the synopsis I was still searching for to add to this thread. Thanks also to all other contributers. You've helped me tremendously in clearing my thoughts on this topic and have shown me emotionally that I am not alone in my quest for the beauty sublime and for the spiritual experience, often so profound, we call "musicality". |
Greg, I think your point is of great validity and importance. I would say, if we get an inkling of the "gestalt" of a performance, can feel something of the general atmosphere, as in your striking example, especially of course in suroundings and circumstances we are unfamiliar with, then we have a music system of quality.
Thanks to your insight shared with us, you have now given me personally an explanation, why I prefer live recordings so much, inspite of the recording drawbacks they might have. You put out the lights and are often more easily than not drawn into the performance with a superior system at your disposal. Cheers, |
Greg, how true. This however is beter than nothing at all. Warm greetings to all who participated and thankyou. I learnt a lot and got new directions to ruminate on and ponder about. A great gift in itself!! |
Djjd, thanks for sharing this wonderful quote with us. I agree with your definition of musicality, one could add.... and what is " in flow" , to add an inner rythm element to it on the time level, which adds very much to the "feeling of what is beautiful and what is right" as you say. Cheers, |
