musicality is a clone of technicality sent back in time.

[Rob47]

Having musicality and being technically sound are the same thing.   Let me rephrase that.  Being "musically good" is not necessarily the same as being "technically good", however being "technically good" almost certainly makes you "musically good". Let me explain why I believe this.

I think playing lighting quick octaves, and ultra fast runs are part of a solid technique.  But I believe the ability to control each tone within those octaves/runs, and in doing so make clear and fluent musical lines, is another huge part of having solid technique. Expressing fully your FFFF's and PPPP's, your cantabile's and strepitoso's etc.  But herein lies the contraversy: couldn't you then program a computer to play something like Mozart k330 if you spent a lot of time telling it the "volume" of each note, duration, etc. and artificially create phrasing in this way? I mean every note and every degree of pedal all relative to an entire phrase?  It would have to be a really good program but they are out there.  Would the process of programming everything in be the "musicality" part? Can a player piano have musicality? I'd like to think it is impossible to create artificial musicality but IS IT?

"Can a player piano have musicality?"

Player piano's use rolls right?  So say Vladamir "The Best Pianist Ever" Horowitz (what have I done!?) came over to your house and you asked him to play K330 on your player piano.  You listen and you say "Oh thank you Mr. Horowitz, that's a different interpretation but great all the same", and then he goes home.  Later if you were to listen to what the roll recorded, would there be musicality in it?  There was when Horowitz was playing it, so shouldn't there be now?  Would watching the key's move with no one playing it kill the musicality?

So now that I have dug myself into a hole and really don't know what the heck I was trying to prove/explain in this post, please, what are your thoughts?  If you have a clue of where I was trying to go with this (I don't anymore), feel free to expand.

I suppose you could consider what I said about
Technicality is Musicality...or is it?
Could a computer be programmed to playback with musicality?
Player Pianos/Piano Rolls of pianists: Do they cease to be musical with no pianist playing the keys?
Rob really has to stop trying to sound smart

Finally, after all this typing,  I think there is a definite human component to Musicality, whereas Techinality in the barest sense of the word is just that and does not need the human medium for it to be conveyed.  Any thoughts?

your friend
Rob

[ted]

Off the cuff, my answers would be:

Technicality is Musicality...or is it?
Meaning does finger dexterity imply musicianship ? No.

Could a computer be programmed to playback with musicality?
Yes, I think so, but the design of such algorithms is still in its infancy .

Player Pianos/Piano Rolls of pianists: Do they cease to be musical with no pianist playing the keys?
No.

[Goldberg]

I think one of your main ideas is somewhat on track, but IMHO it's just a little bit off. Think of it this way: instead of musicality being technique, think of technique as being the system through which musicality might be displayed. The best example is Gyorgy Cziffra, without a doubt one of the greatest "technicians" ever. He became rather irritated when one of his close musician friends admired his technique in conversation. "What you call technique," Cziffra said, "I call a means of expression." I take that to mean that because he had an unstoppable technique that knew no boundaries, anything and everything Cziffra imagined--musically--could be achieved. As a result, because there was absolutely no technical barrier, Cziffra could play what he wanted to play how he wanted to play it. Nothing got in his way. With that in mind, you can take it or leave it; like Cziffra, or not. I happen to love his work. I think most of it is great genius which many people tend to criticise because, for some reason, it seems a little "too exciting" to be proper "Classical" music.

In any event, I've also taken those words to heart. There's certainly nothing wrong with an average techique if you possess a great sense of musicality (and I would certainly take that over the stereotypical pyrotechnician with no musicality at all), but I think that technical mastery can open up an unlimited number of doors for pianists--it's just how they use it from that point on.

Anyway, that might be somewhat tangential to the original post, but I think it's at least relevant to your first question.

[Bob]

I think part of determining whether or not a performance is musical is whether the listener is listening for technical things or for emotions.  If you can get the listener into the performance, they listen musically and think you're musical.  If the listener wants to hear technique and wants to find mistakes, they will.

[Stolzing]

Technicality is playing the piece exactly as it's written on the score.  However, if you play it this way without musicality, it will usually sound very robotic and dull.  Musicality is going beyond the notes and playing what sounds good.  If you ever listen to midi files that were created by entering the notes in 1 by 1, they usually sound very poor compared to the ones that are a recording of a performance, even though the notes are "technically" correct.

[Motrax]

Piano rolls are very crude reproductions of a pianists' performance. The recording piano only catches notes, note lengths, and crude pedalling (up or down). The dynamics and voicing are all done by an engineer listening in. Then, the pianist and engineer go over the roll and edit it so that it sounds better. But although rolls retain the character of the pianist, they do not come close to being musical. I listened to a roll of Rachmaninoff's Elegy the other day, and although it had some of his nuances of style (rhythmic drive, for example), it felt rather wooden and unnatural.

I don't believe computers will ever replace pianists, not because they aren't capable of producing music, but because we as humans like to see performances by other humans. CD recordings might be replaced by computers, though, since there isn't much human aspect in popping a CD into a box and hitting "play" to begin with.

[Rob47]

I think one of your main ideas is somewhat on track, but IMHO it's just a little bit off. Think of it this way: instead of musicality being technique, think of technique as being the system through which musicality might be displayed. The best example is Gyorgy Cziffra, without a doubt one of the greatest "technicians" ever. He became rather irritated when one of his close musician friends admired his technique in conversation. "What you call technique," Cziffra said, "I call a means of expression." I take that to mean that because he had an unstoppable technique that knew no boundaries, anything and everything Cziffra imagined--musically--could be achieved. As a result, because there was absolutely no technical barrier, Cziffra could play what he wanted to play how he wanted to play it. Nothing got in his way. With that in mind, you can take it or leave it; like Cziffra, or not. I happen to love his work. I think most of it is great genius which many people tend to criticise because, for some reason, it seems a little "too exciting" to be proper "Classical" music.

In any event, I've also taken those words to heart. There's certainly nothing wrong with an average techique if you possess a great sense of musicality (and I would certainly take that over the stereotypical pyrotechnician with no musicality at all), but I think that technical mastery can open up an unlimited number of doors for pianists--it's just how they use it from that point on.

Anyway, that might be somewhat tangential to the original post, but I think it's at least relevant to your first question.

Yes I think that is what I was getting at with your Cziffra example! "What you call technique I call means of expression."  Cziffra's so cool. 

[timothy42b]

Technicality is playing the piece exactly as it's written on the score.  However, if you play it this way without musicality, it will usually sound very robotic and dull.  Musicality is going beyond the notes and playing what sounds good.  If you ever listen to midi files that were created by entering the notes in 1 by 1, they usually sound very poor compared to the ones that are a recording of a performance, even though the notes are "technically" correct.

A score is but an imperfect indication of the composer's intent.

Musicality is the ability to convey the composer's intent.

I do not see much difference between that and technicality.