What is Musicality?

The term ‘musicality’ gets used in different ways by different audiophiles, but there is one usage that I find the most informative: A system is described as musical when the sound it produces is perceived by the listener as a GESTALT, rather than a collection of individual elements like resolution, tonal balance, imaging, and so on.

Of course, the likelihood of gestalt perception depends as much on the inclinations of the listener as it does the characteristics of the system. Some people seem naturally inclined to listen analytically, and some systems seem to promote that. Other people seem naturally inclined to listen holistically, and some systems seem to promote that. When a system tends to promote holistic listening, it is often described as “musical.” And that seems to me to be a useful enough adjective to have around.

Sabai wrote in the OP:

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. Most people appreciate good music but some people are born more musical than others…

I think Sabai is right about this, and that the same thing could be said of appreciating novels, plays, movies, painting, or any other art form. Appreciation says as much about the appreciator as it does the thing appreciated. This raises the question:

Who are the best appreciators of an art form (in this case, music)?

One possible answer is that the best appreciators of an art form are the artists themselves. So musicians are the best appreciators of music, writers of writing, painters of painting, and so on. If that is true, then a person's APPRECIATION of an art form is directly proportional to his EXPERTISE with that art form. At least one poster, Kijanki, is extremely skeptical about this:

Are you suggesting that musicians are better listeners? Nothing can be further from the truth…Performers are not the best receivers of music, composers are not the best performers etc…

But Learsfool describes this statement as…

…completely absurd on the face of it. One cannot become a professional musician without VERY highly developed critical listening skills...

I think the conflict between Kijanki and Learsfool here is attributable to the fact that Kijanki is talking about listening APPRECIATION, and Learsfool is talking about listening EXPERTISE. That is an inherent ambiguity is the phrase “better listener” throughout this discussion. Here are the two possible interpretations:

1. Better listener = greater APPRECIATION.
...or...
2. Better listener = greater EXPERTISE.

I think that Learsfool is correct when he points out that professional musicians are better listeners in the sense that they have greater listening EXPERTISE than non-musicians. But I also think that Kijanki is correct when he points out that having greater listening expertise does not guarantee greater listening APPRECIATION.

I have expertise with an art form (not music), having spent nearly ten years devoted to it, and I can say from personal experience that the relationship between expertise and appreciation is not simple or linear. For example:

i. Expertise, particularly in its early stages, promotes analytic perception, which can be an obstacle to the appreciation of an art form. However, expertise, in its later stages, promotes holistic perception, which enhances the appreciation of an art form.

ii. Expertise raises a person’s standard for “good” art, which can be an obstacle to the appreciation of works that do not meet that personal standard. However, expertise, by raising a person’s standards for “good” art, can intensify a person’s appreciation of works that do meet that personal standard.

These are just two examples of how the relationship between expertise and appreciation is complicated, changing, and sometimes unpredictable. To be sure, artists know far more about their art form than others, but that knowledge can be both a blessing and a curse, when it comes to appreciation.