Musicality

Musicality (music-al-ity) is "sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music" or "the quality or state of being musical", and is used to refer to specific if vaguely defined qualities in pieces and/or genres of music, such as melodiousness and harmoniousness.^[1] These definitions are somewhat hampered by the difficulty of defining music, but, colloquially, "music" is often contrasted with noise and randomness. Judges of contest music may describe a performance as bringing the music on the page to life; of expressing more than the mere faithful reproduction of pitches, rhythms, and composer dynamic markings. In the company of two or more musicians, there is the added experience of the ensemble effect in which the players express something greater than the sum of their individual parts. A person considered musical has the ability to perceive and reproduce differences in aspects of music including pitch, rhythm, and harmony (see: ear training). Two types of musicality may be differentiated: to be able to perceive music (musical receptivity) and to be able to reproduce music in addition to creating music (musical creativity).^[1][2]