A rising sound (high definition) has gripping quality (8)
I believe the answer is:
adhesion
'gripping quality' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both human attributes as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'a rising sound high definition' is the wordplay.
'rising' is a reversal indicator (going up in a down clue).
'sound' becomes 'noise' (a noise is a sound).
'high definition' becomes 'hd' (this could be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'noise'+'hd'='noisehd'
'noisehd' backwards is 'dhesion'.
'a'+'dhesion'='ADHESION'
'has' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for adhesion that I've seen before include "Process of sticking together" , "Grip" , "steady attachment" , "Stickiness" , "The property of sticking" .)