mu·si·cal·i·ty
myo͞oziˈkalətē
noun
1.
tastefulness and accomplishment in music.
"she sings with unfailing musicality"
This is what it says when I Google the word.
My original band is, in a way, currently dealing with this very issue. We have a guitarist and a new bass player who feel that we need to get out and play some gigs to help pay for the studio. They want to make money playing music. I would too, in a sense, but that is not my primary objective or motivation to play music, nor the band leader's.
We see the studio as a luxury. We're not on any set schedule like those studios where you rent a couple hours, set-up, tear-down, everything is hurried and we're always in a time crunch. I have an OK job and I can enjoy this luxury because I made it a priority in my life. I don't have a wife or kids so it's a bit easier for me.
What the band leader and I do want is to develop an original set of mostly instrumental songs, much like Steve Kimock's band, that we are truly confident about. We have been working on this sound and developing it for over two years now and we're just starting to scratch the surface of where we want to be in a musical sense. To use an analogy, our music is cooked in a slow cooker, whereas these other guys can't really afford this luxury and they want to put it all in the microwave and get on a stage and play. You know what happens to food when you cook it in a microwave. Sure it's cooked, but you won't get the nutrients, you won't get the nice texture, and the flavors won't be quite as magnificent as you would get from a slow cooked meal.
We are good musicians, but not top-notch professionals. This kind of quality takes time, and when a person doesn't have the luxury to take the time to do it right, then the musicality of the songs will suffer. So we tell them, "hey, you wanna make money money? Then go join a cover band or a tribute band. You wanna put in the time to make this music great? Then you'll have to be able to afford this luxury because this ain't no microwave band that's gonna go out there and half-ass it on a stage just to make $50 bucks." It's really hard to find guys who can pay their dues and put in the time it takes to develop into something really great that we can feel confident and proud of. We literally want to blow people's minds on stage and that's still going to take a little time to get there.