What is Musicality?

Detlof,

I am not very inclined to make this into an intellectual thing. Music is perceived by the brain in a special way, thankfully. We can try to dissect the whole matter but it does not change the perceptions.

Learsfool,

As you rightly point out, musicality and music appreciation are not just about emotion. There are feelings and thoughts and other psychological events that happen when we look at what it means to be musical. But it does mean being moved in one or more ways.

Here's a piece, which perhaps at least in parts of it, also covers what we try to discuss here.
http://www.performancerecordings.com/capturing-music.html

Hi Detlof - I think you misunderstood me slightly. I did not mean to equate music exactly with emotion. What I meant is that almost all music is expressive of some emotion, which is not the same thing. In fact, music can be much more expressive of emotion than words.

Also, a great deal of musicality can be quantified, but one has to be somewhat versed in music theory to do so. Music is a language, that has a great deal of logic and "grammar", and all musical compositions have some sort of form, whether it is a simple song form, or a complex very large scale work. Mastery of all these things is fundamental to creating music, and therefore must be a part of "musicality."

To speak to Sabai's comments - almost all music is highly intellectual, though you are certainly not alone in not wanting to think about it in that way. One of the major criticisms of Schoenberg, to pick one of the composers Detlof named, was that his music was too intellectual, despite much of it being very emotionally expressive. He was accused of composing by the mathematical tables, filling in notes according to a formula.

Excellent posts and refreshing to see musicality discussed as it relates to the music and not just some abstract, and usually mistaken, description of the sound of equipment. A couple of thoughts re some recent comments:

I think that it's important to remember that music affects our emotions in two different ways. There is an important distinction between perceived emotion in music and emotion that is felt. For instance, sometimes a performance is so rapturous and heart-felt, or so in-synch with what the composer intended, that the listener cannot help but be moved by it; it is felt. Then there are works and/or performances that are intended to evoke a certain emotion (fear, for instance) and the listener can understand this, or perceive this without actually feeling that emotion. I do agree that, as Learsfool points out, emotions are part of music. Once a work leaves the printed page (in the case of non-improvised music), the performer's emotions are an integral part of it; it is not simply organized sound. At that point listener personality becomes an important component of the "mix". Listeners of certain personality types react to certain music and certain performance styles differently than other listeners; and react (or not) differently to the expressed emotion in a performance.