Measuring the facets of musicality: The Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI)

Abstract

Individuals vary greatly in how they engage with music and in the skill levels they display for any single musical activity, ranging from the performance on an instrument and listening expertise to the ability to employ music effectively in functional settings. In this paper we introduce the concept of ‘musical sophistication’ that describes the multi-faceted nature of musical expertise. We present the Gold-MSI as a new measurement instrument to assess self-reported musical skills on multiple dimensions in the general population using a large Internet sample (n = 147,636). We also report results from several lab studies, demonstrating that the Gold-MSI possesses good psychometric properties and that self-reported musical sophistication is associated with performance on three listening tasks. Finally, we identify occupation, age, and wealth as some of the main socio-demographic factors associated with musical sophistication. Results are discussed with regard to implicit music learning and to social conditions of sophisticated musical engagement.