g., those making a living as professional orchestral musicians) only score in the middle range of the Seashore tests, while many without musical training or externally MG132 observable ability do very well on them. On three of six Seashore

items, professional symphony players scored below the 50th percentile, making their performance indistinguishable from that of nonmusicians. Correlations between standardized musical aptitude tests and real-world musical achievement are consistently low. I believe that in an effort to control stimuli and reduce music to its atomic elements, the makers of standardized tests have removed its essence, its dynamic and emotional nature. In short, they have removed the muse from music. I argue for a new approach that is both broader based and more naturalistic. Because such research is still in its infancy, I advocate casting a wide net: an inclusive approach to capture as many musical behaviors as possible in initial studies of understanding what it means to be musical. To begin with, we need to be more sensitive

to the variety of ways that assessing musicality can present itself, such as in production and perception, and technically and emotionally. Assessments need to allow for spontaneity and creativity. Consider the ways that musicians evaluate one another: it is not through objective yes/no testing, but through auditions and a process of subjective evaluation. After a century of cognitive psychology and Ferroptosis inhibitor clinical trial psychophysics embracing objective methods as the gold standard, I believe the time is right to reintroduce the opinions and ratings of qualified observers. As Justice Potter Stewart might have said, we may not be able to define musicality, but we know it when we hear it. Subjective evaluations,

properly Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase done with blind coding and tests of interrater reliability, can yield repeatable and rigorous results and have greater real-world validity. Musicality can also be evaluated for individuals who are not players. Disc jockeys already compile demonstration tapes to exhibit their ability to create meaningful playlists and segues. Potential music critics are given assignments, and their work output is evaluated by more experienced critics and editors. The future of music phenotyping should allow for inclusive definitions of musicality, with subjective ratings made by experienced professionals according to replicable scoring guidelines. Designing a suitable test would ideally recruit the involvement of experts from music perception and cognition, education, performance, statistics, and psychometrics. It would involve several steps: (1) Cataloguing those behaviors that we regard as musical.