Musicality

George Fredrik Fiske posted:

Dear Joe,

I quite agree that even very simple musical replay is capable [in many cases] of conveying the musicality of the performers. I don’t there is anything strange about that. 

ATB from George

Agreed George, I fell in love with a lot of my favourite music a long time before I had expensive hifi.  Musicality can shine through on basic equipment if it is in the recording, the trick is keeping it when you start to reveal layer after layer of music with better and better equipment.  Disect it too much and you could lose that core that gives you goose bumps in the first place

TOBYJUG posted:

I read somewhere in a scientific journal - written by some professors in the philosophy of music - that musicality is similar to mathematics, as much as math can be observed to exist outside of our own doing and reasoning, so to could musicality - along with similar symmetry ,abstract and constructional qualities.  With the right formula you can find musicality in anything and everything.   Music of the spheres and beyond....

+1 Tobyjug, your statement captures some of what I was struggling to express.  

SJB,

You have stimulated quite a discussion here.  While I have enjoyed reading everyone's comments and thinking about what 'musicality' might mean, I am less inclined to use the word to describe HiFi equipment.  

An important issue seems to be:  When using the word 'musicality' are we describing a quality of the playback system? ...or our response to the music being replayed?  ...or the music being performed when recorded?

Charlie

With respect to replay, some systems can let the listener realise that the performers are full of musicality. Other replay systems do less well, but the musicality is is the playing - not the replay - it is only preserved [or not] by the replay!

ATB from George

CharlieP posted:

TOBYJUG posted:

I read somewhere in a scientific journal - written by some professors in the philosophy of music - that musicality is similar to mathematics, as much as math can be observed to exist outside of our own doing and reasoning, so to could musicality - along with similar symmetry ,abstract and constructional qualities.  With the right formula you can find musicality in anything and everything.   Music of the spheres and beyond....

+1 Tobyjug, your statement captures some of what I was struggling to express.  

SJB,

You have stimulated quite a discussion here.  While I have enjoyed reading everyone's comments and thinking about what 'musicality' might mean, I am less inclined to use the word to describe HiFi equipment.  

An important issue seems to be:  When using the word 'musicality' are we describing a quality of the playback system? ...or our response to the music being replayed?  ...or the music being performed when recorded?

Charlie

I would say the response to the music being replayed. What else would matter?  Ultimately I would like the live performance recreated before me, but that's not going to happen with live recordings, or studio recordings.  What both types of recording can do though is capture the message, passion, and skill of musicians.  When it comes to playback, it's simply a case of getting the most involving delivery of the recording that you can, for various situations, and price points.  Those that think the term musicality refers to sound quality in an analytical sense are way off my way of thinking.  Music is not even required to analyse the technical performance of a system, you could just as easily compare the sound of a well recorded baboon's fart on every setup from the NAP100 to Statement to judge that.   

Songstream, I agree with you that our response to the (reproduced) music is my end goal (and i assume most would agree).  Of course this places 'musicality' in the subjective realm, and at the whim of listener's mood.  I guess this should come as no surprise.

Charlie

I will also agree with Songstream, and would to like to add curiosity to the performance of the music played from albums, when I feel I want to hear more and let me be surpriced from a guitarsolo or a voice or whatever. That is musicality for me.

/ Anders

I don't know if George would agree, but to me musicality when playing a musical instrument, regardless of how well you can play, it's when you 'connect' with the music and just become immersed, your fingers (mouth etc) doing what they do and you start to sway and weave without realizing it...and to the listener of the live music, it bacomes 'alive' more than just someone mechanically stopping strings or pressing keys (or, if you like, it marks a difference between a computer and a real person playing a tune).

once more, with feeling...

As for hifi, to me the word means much the same: it's when the music engages you, and actually you struggle to listen to the system because the music draws you in, and you can't concentrate on whatever else you had intended to do while the music was on, and when it's a good enough piece of music it's just like a live performance, and when it gets to the end and go 'wow, that tore my heart out', whether to yourself or out loud.

Subjective a word it absolutely is - but then so are many of the other descriptions we all use, probably all of us having slightly different concepts of what they mean. Don't talk to me about analytical or PRaT - to me the goal is realism, but in reality that description of musicality I just gave is what gives me my kicks with recorded music! And every contribution about systems in this forum has that behind it.

Bingo!

nbpf posted:

blythe posted:

To me, "musicality" in terms of listening on a hifi, is the difference between a system which "explodes" the music into the audio equivalent of an "exploded diagram" and a system which plays the actual music.
Some hifi systems are good at presenting an "exploded diagram" of the sound (analytical), others convey the actual music as a whole. (Musical).
I believe Naim to be good at the latter.

Does this somehow imply that analytical systems are better for studying and understanding music (for seeing the exploded view) whereas musical systems are better for enjoying music? But understanding can be source of joy and, possibly, the other way round. I am confused. Best, nbpf 

There is no implication in my post.
To me, the "exploded diagram version" is not as enjoyable as "music as a whole" version, which is how I interpret "musicality" in hifi.

I think "musicality" may have a scale, running from rubbish through toe tapping to I want to get up and dance. It is nebulous, but I did a few months ago listen briefly to a Muso in dreadful surroundings (almost in a shop window) and I was impressed by its musicality (that was my thought at the time)

Musicality does not have the same meaning for everyone. Does Stravinsky have the correct mathematical formula or is it Bach or Jhonny Winter? As for hardware, is it the NA 009 transistor or the EL-34 that capture my attention?