The aim of this paper was to investigate if a general consensus could be established for the term “musician.” Research papers ( N = 730) published between 2011 and 2017 were searched. Of these, 95 papers were identified as investigating relationships of any sort connected with a musician-like category ( e.g., comparison of musically trained vs. non-musically trained people), of which 39 papers detailing comparative studies exclusively between musicians and non-musicians were analyzed. Within this literature, a variety of musical expertise criteria were used to define musicians, with years of music training (51% of papers) and years of music lessons (13% of papers) being the most commonly used criteria. Findings confirm a general consensus in the literature, namely, that a musician, whether or not selected a priori, has at least six years of musical expertise (IQR = 4.0–10.0 years). Other factors such as practice time and recruiting location of musicians were also analyzed, as well as the implications of how this definition fits in relation to the complexities surrounding the construct of the musician. The “six-year rule,” however, was robust overall.

Musicians are typically identified in research papers by some single item measure (SIM) that focuses on just one component of musicality, such as expertise. Recently, musical sophistication has emerged as a more comprehensive approach by incorporating various components using multiple question items. However, the practice of SIM continues. The aim of this paper was to investigate which SIM in musical sophistication indexes best estimates musical sophistication. The Ollen Musical Sophistication Index (OMSI) and the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) were analyzed. The OMSI musician rank item (“Which title best describes you?”) was observed to be the best SIM for predicting OMSI and Gold-MSI scores. Analysis of the OMSI item indicated three parsimonious musical identity categories (MIC); namely, no musical identity (NMI), musical identity (MI), and strong musical identity (SMI). Further analyses of MIC against common SIMs used in literature showed characteristic profiles. For example, MIC membership according to years of private lessons are: NMI is < 6 years; MI is 6–10 years; and SMI is > 10 years. The finding of the study is that the SIM of musician rank should be used because of its face validity, correlation with musical sophistication, and plausible demarcation into the three MIC levels.

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Over the last two decades, five skills relating to visual (Performing Rehearsed Music, Sight-reading), aural (Playing by Ear, Playing from Memory), and creative (Improvising) aspects of music performance have been defined and investigated. To date, however, there has been little research investigating the relationship between these five aspects of performance on general musicianship, and none using psychometric measures. The aim of this study was to empirically investigate this relationship through the use of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). With the exception of 'Sight-reading', results show that all skills were correlated with musical sophistication, with the 'Playing by Ear' skill having the highest correlation (explaining 47.0 % of the variance). Further analysis with individual Gold-MSI subscales revealed specific interrelationships and attributions to Western art music-making practices. For example, the 'Performing Rehearsed Music' skill was predicted by the 'Musical Training', 'Emotions', and 'Singing Abilities' subscales; 'Playing by Ear' was predicted by the 'Active Engagement' and 'Singing Abilities' subscales; and 'Improvising' was predicted by the 'Active Engagement' subscale. Only 'Sight-reading' had no significant predictors. The implications for each skill towards current musical training methods is highlighted and discussed.

Non-invasive medical diagnosis by analysing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at the point-of-care is becoming feasible owing to recent advances in portable instrumentation. A number of studies have assessed the performance of a state-of-the-art VOC analyser (micro-chip high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry, FAIMS) for medical diagnosis. However, a comprehensive meta-analysis is needed to investigate the overall diagnostic performance of these novel methods across different medical conditions. An electronic search was performed using the CAplus and MEDLINE database through the SciFinder platform. The review identified a total of 23 studies and 2312 individuals. Eighteen studies were used for meta-analysis. A pooled analysis found an overall sensitivity of 80% (95% CI, 74%–85%, I 2 = 62%), and specificity of 78% (95% CI, 70%–84%, I 2 = 80%), which corresponds to the overall diagnostic performance of micro-chip FAIMS across many different medical conditions. The diagnostic accuracy was particularly high for coeliac and inflammatory bowel disease (sensitivity and specificity from 74% to 97%). The overall diagnostic performance was similar across breath, urine, and faecal matrices with sparse logistic regression and random forests algorithms resulting in higher diagnostic accuracy. Sources of variability likely arise from differences in sample storage, sampling protocol, method of data analysis, type of disease, sample matrix, and potentially to clinical and disease factors. The results of this meta-analysis indicate that micro-chip FAIMS is a promising candidate for disease screening at the point-of-care, particularly for gastroenterology diseases. This review provides recommendations that should improve the techniques relevant to diagnostic accuracy of future VOC and point-of-care studies.