Musicality" in a system? What IS that ?

"That word 'musicality' is not a familiar word. It is a feeling for what is beautiful, for what is right."

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein (as recounted by physicist John Wheeler) concerning his remark that Niels "Bohr had the highest form of musicality in the sphere of science." Don

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,

Detlof, this has been an inspiring thread. IMHO, and borrowing liberally from Katharina, Frogman and others, musicality cannot exist without, first, the highest level of artistry. Whether the art is in physics (Djjd) or the creation and performance of music, the artist must have a natural emotional and intuitive understanding of the craft. We've all heard it -- it's what keeps us going and stirs our souls: The performances that are so seamless that is seems the artist is transparent and only something greater, the music, exists. Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughn come to mind in the blues genre. Once that happens, our amps and speakers are called on to deliver it in our homes. I don’t know whether the delivery of musicality occurs because of accurate nth harmonic reproductions, the accurate capture of natural echoes, a totally black background or just the right soundstaging. But it does require enough subtlety to capture the nuances that differentiate the great performances. Presumably, the audio reviewers use the music that stirs their souls when they test systems. So, since the musicality was already there in the performance being evaluated, the system can be tested for the faithful reproduction of the subtleties that define great musicality. As many suggest, it is simply a matter of whether you feel you are there -- you are sharing in the mastery of music. Maybe I'm rambling, but a system can get in the way of musicality but it cannot reproduce it if it isn't in the performance first. Great performances are differentiated from average ones by great differences in emotion and talent that are funneled to us in many small ways. The accurate capture of those small things is what counts. Since we are dealing in nuances and each system has tiny imperfections, we are guaranteed a life of tweaking and searching as audiophiles. But, it’s a happy search and there are a lot of gems found along the way. Again Detlof, thanks (I’ve pretty much left “musicality” linked to my emotional response – now, I’m wondering whether there aren’t some things that can be grasped more analytically so I can improve my system more intelligently. Not to worry, I can’t give up the emotional response :-))

Ozfly, thanks for so astutely pointing out again to us, what should be obvious really, but often isn't: Even the best system will not be musical, if the performance it tries to reproduce is not. PERIOD.

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".

I would like to up the ante in this very interesting discussion. Haven't we all experienced being in the presence of a very gifted artist or of an otherwise very gifted individual and felt a very powerful force or presence about them? This force is evident even when they simply walk into the room, or speak, or just stand there. I am not talking about the feelings of being "star-struck" that we all experience on occasion; I'm talking about an almost palpable sense of that person's spirit. This feeling may also be the sense of the collective feeling of anticipation, excitement or even fear in a room full of people; as suggested by Gregm. Of course, of most interest to us is how this force manifests itself while that individual(s) is performing. Now, we audiophiles in the "subjectivist" camp like to point out that one of the reasons that certain audible (to us) phenomena is difficult to explain or justify is that the proper, and/or sensitive enough, measurement tools have not been devised yet. In addition, most of us (I think) accept the fact that musical subtlety is so delicate and fine that we will probably never be able to completely quantify and justify it's make up, as relates to sound reproduction. Throughout the history of audio design there has been the steady discovery of design considerations that are at least, "perceived" to make a difference in the "sound" of a component. Why then, would it be so far fetched to think that on some level, however fine, a bit of the spirit of a performer or the collective "vibe" of a room could be captured and subsequently reproduced by audio equipment? Certainly on some level that we don't quite understand yet, the parameters related to "sound" as we understand it, being that these sounds are being produced by the individuals in question, are very much connected to the "spirit". So why couldn't some of this be reflected in a recording/reproduction. Makes sense to me. Thoughts?

Frogman, couldn't we assume that the performer's(') spirit influences their performance? Furthermore, that the musicians' personal psyche and the surrounding collective energy (for want of a better word) permeate the spirit? If so, there will be nuances in the performance that reflect these emotional parametres... and they will be picked up during a recording.
I am borrowing your example of persons excercisng a powerful force / or aura. The greatness is, sometimes, in the way such musicians can sublimate collective and personal emotions, and can express these through their creative impetus (or, maybe, genius)... the result being a great work of art (performance), or a work of art (performance) by a great musician -- both sometimes?
Humans create & respond to situations using sounds (including non-verbal sounds) and, ofcourse, body and facial expressiveness. (For most of the music available, we have no image -- just the sound.) A microphone can capture some of these sounds -- call it "ambient" sound, or whatever. A good system will reproduce the nuances / flavour / gestalt of such sounds; not the sound of turning the page on the score, but rather, the sound made by the collective emotion in the venue where the recording was made.

Or am I getting more verbiose with time?
Regards, Greg

Frogman and Gregm, your questions might be redefined as "do feelings (or aura...) add to the music in a palpable way"? In other words, would you hear something different from two musicians even if they played the exact notes? That could be a great experiment! Same notes, same instrument, same location, same tempo -- subjective vs. objective tests and defining the gaps. I tend to think that the musicians who are great add more layers and change the timing just enough to capture the greatness of the music, so I would initially discount the aura approach. But ... who knows? A live test would be an interesting first step. Follow up with whether reproduction equipment captures any live differences that exist. Very interesting questions -- once I started thinking about it, I again realized how little we actually know. (For all that matters, it would be interesting to objectively test "great" vs. average artists to discern the differences -- that could translate into better equipment design or configurations.)
Katherina and Detlof, thanks for the kind words. Cheers.