What is Musicality?
Sabai, thank you for your kind words. Pandora's Box indeed, judging from some of the remarks here. There is no society on earth without some kind of music. In the old Chinese dynastes there were of the opinion, that if the music was "good", the state was in order. A good point perhaps, because music often seems to reflect the "mood" certain strata of society are in. Just think of jazz developing from the 30 of the last century onward. Everyone knows that music can have a deep influence on our state of mind, but actually nobody really knows how this connecting of mind and organised sound is possible. |
Detlof, Thanks for your thoughtful and sensitive posts. For me musicality is a combination of a high level of artistry on the part of the performers, a deep appreciation for music and great sensitivity on the part of the listener, and a system that is good enough to reproduce performances well. This leaves a lot of leeway for interpretation. I believe that we are looking at a continuum here, not a single standard that can be written in stone and defined by absolutes. Nevertheless, there is a point at which one may say the performance was not moving, or the system was not up to reproducing the performance with sufficient nuance. As for the listener? How do you begin to talk about sensitivity and music appreciation without opening a Pandora's Box? |
Musical Magnets anyone? |
By the way, I brought up the same question about a decade ago with a lot of very thoughtful replies to my thread. Here is one, which I consider one of the most thought provoking and certainly should be recalled here: 04-28-01: Ozfly 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 (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread) |
Sabai, I stumbled unto this thread only now unfortunately, being intreaged about your use of magnets on a new thread of yours. To my mind a system is felt to be musical, if it allows a listener to be deeply touched by what he hears. A system, which lets "the soul of the music" come through. A musical person is generally also a music lover and not necessarily just an audiophile. The two do not always and at all occasion necessarily coincide and this fact makes the definition of musicality difficult in our context here. A system itself can never be musical. It is just a collection of machines. Nor can the software, we feed our machines with be musical. It is rather in the interplay of software, machine and ear that we deem one system musical and another not. I find the fact interesting, that even with a system which we on one day experience as musical, on another day with the same music playing we find as sounding awful. So there is more to it, than just "ear". The high end industry strives in part due to the fact, that we often enough question our systems. Is it really as good as we think? Shouldn't we rather get product B, because our product A does somehow not keep its promise? And so on and on ad nauseam. Compare that to our going to a live concert. Unless we sit in a really lousy seat, would we ever criticize the sound as unmusical? The interpretation of a given piece, yes of course, but the sound itself? Hardly, I would contend, unless again, we are seated in an acoustical unfortunate place. So, live music, even if it is perhaps not pleasing to us, IS by definition musical. And hence I am thinking, that perhaps the late Harry Pearson was right, when he tried - at least in his beginnings - to judge systems in comparing them to what he called "the absolute sound", namely that of live music. And yes, to be a good critic of how a given system sounds, you must necessarily be a "musical person" who, if he is a music lover, would also enjoy music from whatever source it comes from. If the source is more important than the music, I would call that person an audiophile, a sound lover, translated, but not a true lover of music. Just my two cents..... |
"some people are very musical by nature and don't need great sound to enjoy music" Yes, its a very interesting and valid point. Just one more reason why pursuit of the absolute sound is mostly a technical endeavor of little interest to many music lovers. TEchnical perfection helps but is not a pre-requisite for enjoying music. It can put you in a better position perhaps to enable enjoyment if needed, but alone accomplishes nothing. You need a "musical person" in order to cohabit effectively. How hard is it really to enjoy music? Aren't we all programmed for that to some extent, each perhaps a bit differently? Hence all the variety in how we all go about to achieve the desired results. |
If you read the original post, he wants to know what makes a system good! OP stated that: "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." He was not asking about good equipment, but rather stating fact that some people are very musical by nature and don't need great sound to enjoy music. I'm not one of them - being unable to have ANY enjoyment listening to symphony orchestra on tiny pocket transistor radio. In fact it would annoy me knowing what I'm loosing. That's logical brain speaking. I wish I could turn it off. |
"it got my foot tapping" That's as good an indicator as any. " I often wonder if it's just me?" Its possible. PErsonally I;ve found deciding what to chose to listen to with so much to choose from these days a chore. When that happens, I put my music streamer on random play off my digital music library and let it decide what I should hear. Then I am able to just soak it all in and not have to pick and choose. or I'll put on Radio Paradise or some other good quality internet channel or maybe even add some stuff to my library in AMazon prime and explore some other new horizons that I might not otherwise. Sometimes I'll get teh urge to pull out some old record off the shelve and revisit it, but not as often as used to be the case. Most of what I like is pretty well represented in my digital music library these days. Its nice to just liten and not have to make dcisions, especially when so much to choose from these days. |
Seems to me that everyone is hung up on the word, "Musical", and are not answering the man's question. If you read the original post, he wants to know what makes a system good! He just uses the word Musical for the lack of a better one. So, what makes a system good? That's a very simple question to answer. A good stereo system is one that compels you to listen. One recording leads to another, and another, and you find it hard to pull yourself away from it. Let me elaborate, as a young man, even as a child, I pursued a good stereo! And when I was 16 I had a nice Technics receiver that just impressed my friends to no end. It was quite nice for the time, and for someone my age. But I was always looking for something better. I wanted to move up to a really high end stereo! I went through a few different setups, mostly Japanese receivers of the era, and was never satisfied. And then one day I found my way into a real high end salon! I was officially enlightened. I was still fairly young, not wealthy, and I assembled a system over a few years consisting of an Adcom 555, Adcom pre-, Sony ES CD player, Denon record player, and Vandersteen 2C speakers. This simple little system was musical! In that it got my foot tapping, it could evoke an emotional response! I could easily become so involved that it would bring a tear to my eye. And I played music! I would come home from work, turn it on as soon as I came in. After supper I would play records, one after the other, all night, it would pass midnight and knowing I had a hard day tomorrow and I just had to hear one more record! And many, many times I wouldn't get to bed until the wee hours of 2 or 3am, I just couldn't pull myself away. Well, I have a different life now. I live in a different house, different wife, different job, everything. And I no longer own that little $5 or $6K system, now I've got a system, all used from Audiogon of course! With about $17K in it! It's bigger, fancier, and made up of much better names than that early system, and it sounds fantastic! It sounds amazing, but, for some reason that desire to keep playing one more record, that inability to pull myself away from it, is gone. I often wonder if it's just me? And maybe at some level it is. But I keep swapping gear out, trying to recapture that musicality of the old system. And I'm getting closer! But still. Not quite there. Why don't I just sell it all and buy an identical system to that early system? I'm not sure. But that's not what I'm writing about, I'm writing about what makes a stereo musical! And to me, that is the definition. |
Musicality has little to do with high end systems. Typically, high end systems are about providing the frequency response, detail, dynamics, low levels of distortion and noise levels, and perhaps imaging and soundstage that can reproduce what is in the recording accurately. Most recordings consist of music, but not all. How about sound effects? We know what many of those really sound like from everyday experience. A high end system should reproduce those as accurately as possible as well. Has nothing to do with music, but if it can, its a good omen for when the music is playing. SO a high end or high quality or call it whatever you want system provides a platform capable of reproducing sound and music as needed, but has no musicality itself. THat is a function mostly of how we react emotionally to what we hear. |
To me musicality means that I get transported by the music to another place, I can forget where I am or what I was doing and just engulf myself in the beautiful sound that fills my ears and give me goosebumps on certain passages. I have been building my system for 4 or 5 years now and it at this point I am simply loving it, still have a couple more things to change burt almost there. When I am listening I completely forget all of the technical details of the electronics and sources and just enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. People always seem to ask me what is the best amp or preamp or speakers, I think there is a simple response... whatever sounds best to them, whatever allows them to engulf themselves in the music and gives them those goosebumps on certain passages. |
Rawinsonde, Musicality has different meanings in different contexts. It may have one meaning for a musician and a different meaning for an audiophile. One meaning does not exclude the other. The music world is big enough to handle both. Being musical applies very well to components and audio systems. |
I'm with Elescher: pace, rhythm, timing and tone/timbre. If it sounds right and gets my toes tapping, the first word out of my mouth would probably be "musical." If something sounds "real" AND "musical," it's either someone else's or I've stumbled upon a live performance. Have you ever noticed how poor the soundstage is with live performances? Maybe if they put the drumset on stillpoints it would expand the soundstage some. Just a suggestion I read on Steve Hoffman forum. You knew I would get that in there! You knew it! |
"Musical" literally means "of the music". In general it tends to be used to describe the subjective artistic merit of a musical performance. In my opinion the word has been "bastardized" to hifi. Components and stereos are not "musical" - they are sophisticated electronics designed to reproduce the musicality of the original recorded event - or lack thereof. They should be designed with the explicit goal of reproducing the signal as accurately as possible - not to be "musical", "artistic" or otherwise call attention to themselves. My own opinion is that this term is one of the most overused words in the hifi press. It means little more to me than the reviewer saying "I like the way it sounds". It is not edifying or descriptive as it has no frame of reference. |
What is the meaning of life? There's 7 billion answers to that question, and just as many interpretations of what musicality is. Really, it's all about personal preference. And it will change as you age and gain experience. Musicality is not an absolute, it's in flux, intangible, and mostly elusive. It's the butterfly we can't catch, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's in a system cobbled together costing a few dollars to one's costing the GNP of a third world country. It comes in all sizes shapes and colours,and just when you think you have it , you hear something that has even more of it than what you have. Musicality will haunt you for all the days of your life in this hobby. It's all around you,yet you can't capture it and put it in a jar, or a tube, speaker etc. You can get a taste of it now an then, but you'll never drink the cup dry. |
Musicality naturally evolves from familiar musical scales and familiar sounding instruments. Instruments in turn mimick our voices and other interesting natural sounds, emotionally. My "objective" music system allows me to access and to reach much further into the "subjective emotional performance". The moving emotional drive within the performance is the holy grail of musicality. Delivering music at home is a triad to me. It starts with the musician's emotional performances, then, the engineers' recording quality, and then onto a well-matched audio system. Musicality is something like driving a great sports car and feeling one with the roads, or, feeling one with the music, verses admiring the car parked away at a distance. The true holy grail is the changing emotional connections to the road only felt best from behind the wheel. Great musicality is a emotional connection to music that draws me to modern short tunes, or a longer journey like a great album or a jaw-dropping fabulous symphony. |
In terms of audio components, it seems as though many but not all audiophiles are attempting to create a live atmosphere and an emotional experience that is dependent on the quality of certain chosen electronics. So that in itself negates the argument of recreating a sonic moment in time, when and where the musician/s played his or her instrument. I can take a high quality photograph which will communicate a feeling or an understanding but it will never be more than a photograph. Hi end audio is a great thing and achieving higher standards will never end but have you ever tried having a conversation with your amplifier? Musicality is also a language but I still believe that it's better where there is flesh and blood. That's my standard. |
I think musicality has to do with the ability to express heart and soul, the ability to express a certain feeling and convey it in a way that listeners feel or relate to that same feeling. Musicality is expression of what is within one's self through the medium of melody and harmony, and different musicians have different levels of accomplishment, as well as simply having different interpretations of a piece, that is all subjectively enjoyed by each audience member. No person in the audience perceives the performance the exact same way, with some preferring other artists, techniques, or styles, none of which is right nor wrong, simply preferred. I believe that the most 'musical' system is that which does not lose any information from the media it obtained it from, since the system itself is not expressing anything in and of itself, but simply reproducing that which was provided. Still, technique to an artist is not necessarily musicality (though it does provide better ability to express it), and likewise detail, soundstaging and perfect frequency response does not guarantee a 'musical' system. I have heard live performances that were technically flawless, but inspired no emotion from me, and have heard performances where notes were missed but I still cried. The same has happened for me with systems, some sounding great in technical regards yet I am unmoved, while others may not accomplish all the 'audiophile' requirements but still grip me. I believe that this is the conundrum we all discuss, and all try to solve in our own systems with our own list of priorities of what makes up 'musicality'. Everybody's lists are most assuredly ordered differently, judging by the systems put together here! |
Musicality is a subjective term that describes natural sounding music. You can't break it down into a technical description because the whole point is to describe the sum total of technical specs. Musicality means the system sounds right. The tone and timbre is correct. The frequency balance is not artificially augmented, but naturally flat. There are no shortcuts like huge negative feedback, yet the music is not distorted. It is easy to measure one spec, but the brain is a much more sophisticated analyzer. We perceive everything at once, and if the music sounds like Julia Fisher is in the room playing the Bach Concerto, the system has musicality. I'll put it another way- try going back to an all-in-one-box system, and you will know what "musicality" is not! |
I haven't been to the Vanguard but do have both vinyl and cd of Waltz for Debby and most of Evan's recordings for that matter. I can CERTAINLY hear that low ceiling, very typical of a lot of jazz venues I've been to, one place quite close to us in Florida that has since closed Dino's for anyone that has been to that place in Cocoa Beach, FL. Had some really good local jazz here in the day along with Wolfies, oh well probably no one on this site is familiar with these obscure places but that Village Vanguard recording does remind me of the acoustic space of Dinos. |
Thanks, Charles1dad and Tubegroover. On a related note, Tubegroover, Bill Evan's "Walts For Debby" (all of the Village Vanguard sessions, actually) does a great job of capturing the sound of the recording venue. If you ever have the opportunity to visit the Village Vanguard in NYC, you will hear what a remarkable job that recording does of capturing the sound of that space; the low ceiling, well dampened sound. Not a particularly attractive acoustic, but unique, and easily identified; for all those that say a recording's sound cannot be used as a reliable reference. |
Charles1dad I like the part "If the equipment adds "musicality" to the signal, that is a distortion." This equates to the "better than real" comments that is occasionally mentioned, kind of like a drug but one thing for sure, over time it becomes increasingly obvious, its always there when sometimes you know it shouldn't be. The thing is that we all hear differently and we have our preferences but unless you spend a lot of time listening to live acoustic performances it can become a bit tricky determining where that line lies. Again great observations Frogman. |
Musicality is the measure of a piece of equipment's ability to let the natural elements of the recorded PERFORMANCE pass through it without so much editorialization that it loses the musician's intent. If the equipment adds "musicality" to the signal, that is a distortion. Simply put, musicality IS accuracy; not the opposite of it. |
Recently I made some improvements that have been quite rewarding. When you make improvements in amp and speaker at the same time, it's impossible to tell "who is doing what". Since the sound is much more "musical", I began to ponder that word. "Musicality" in regard to components is a misnomer. This new music I was hearing, was on the CD before I got the new components. This new "nuance" was the musicians "musicality" that I had not heard before. Audio components are not musical instruments, consequently they possess no "musicality". Since my system is "ultra neutral", there is nothing about it that can be termed "musical". |
