musicianiship--when is it bad or good ?

Good musicianship is characterized by playing all the notes with the proper rhythm, tonality and meter. If playing with an ensemble, it's also earmarked by playing in a manner that blends with the other instruments so that several sound like one.

Musical artistry is another thing altogether. One has to have good musicianship to be an artist, but artists take good musicianship and add interpretation that is unique to them.

It's much more common to agree on good musicianship than musical artistry.

perhaps, what i was really asking about was artistry not musicianship. but the context was for solo performances, or for a conductor.

if an artist deliberately takes liberties, including wrong notes, tempos, plays sharp or flat, some professional musicians might consider such a performance an example of poor musicianship. yet, the performing artist may disagree.

the standards alluded to above, proably accepted by "professional" musicians are just that. there may be some musicians who disagree with what are commonly accepted standards.

i am trying to get to a more universal, philosophical question, namely, the idea of quality. i believe that all instances of judgements of quality are purely subjective and therefore opinion. even if standards can be established and are accepted by experts, another set of standards could also be established by a minority, which, are just as valid.

why am i harping on this subject ??

it seems that many of the threads and posts on audiogon are directly or indirectly related to the idea of excellence of sound, music, etc. .

people have very strong convictions about sound quality and music. i feel that one should be more open minded about quality and not be critical of others or dismissive of products which are considered to be of poor quality because they are not up to someone's standards of what quality is.

in the world of the quantitative, it is logical to deduce quality, but in a world in which value judgements are made without any logic, but rather based upon standards which are determined by consensus, notions of quality are basically opinions, albeit, intelligent and eductaed opinions.

in the interests of communication it might be advised to describe a performance, sound etc., and let the reader decide whether it is "bad" or "good".

11-03-06: Mrtennis
if an artist deliberately takes liberties, including wrong notes, tempos,
plays sharp or flat, some professional musicians might consider such a
performance an example of poor musicianship. yet, the performing artist
may disagree.

Perhaps with jazz or experimental music. Both encourage exploration, but one must know the rules, and be able to play expertly within the rules before the rules can be broken, IMO.

i believe that all instances of judgements of
quality are purely subjective and therefore opinion.

Regarding musicianship, there is a set of baseline qualities that define
musicianship and every musician is trained in these qualities from the time they first pick up, or sit down with their instrument. If judgments of quality are being made by trained musicians, then their opinions are based on accepted guidelines, and are therefore less subjective than if the judgments are being made by laymen. In that case, all bets are off, and it's the Wild West.

Judgments of artistry allow for more open interpretation and subjectivity.

Mr T, A challenge for you, time to put your money where your mouth is.

Pretend that you have just attended a performance of Mahler's 9th symphony. You also have a score. You have heard this symphony many times by many conductors.
You are a very knowlegable musicoligist who has a complete understanding of this music. You are a reviewer (which you are) so you have a good command of the English language.

Now with all of that I defy you to write a review which will be meaningful to the average concert goer who cannot read a score and can only understand the nature of the performance as it might compare to another conductors performance (probably the typical audience for reviewer commentary). Your review, in order to remain totally objective, a goal you see as admirable, must be devoid of any subjective adjectives.

Oh, in addition, in order to keep your reader awake thru your review you must keep it interesting as well.

Bet you can't do it!

11/03/06: MrTennis
in the interests of communication it might be advised to describe a performance, sound etc., and let the reader decide whether it is "bad" or "good".

wouldn't that be kind of like describing a color? What does blue look like? And after reading your description of "blue"...would I still like it?