Sunday 10 March - 5pm: The Listening Service
Tom Service asks if masculine and feminine are discernible qualities in music. And how have these concepts had an impact on music over the centuries?
This was a question I asked on the forum when I was still a neophyte here. As the question was in the context of classical music, or so I thought, I didn't raise the issue of female versus male expression, directly applied in singing or playing instruments, or of whether feminine qualities exist in musics outside the Euroclassical tradition, eg in pop, rock and jazz-related genres, only that of style. In terms of music conceived on score I put myself at a disadvantage, and I was severely castigated for suggesting such a thing (and told off!
), and asked to produce examples of music by women composers and state categorically what it was that was specifically feminine in them. Had I been thinking more broadly I could have cited Miles Davis as thought of as one who, in contrast to Dizzy Gillespie, elected to express a less aggressive approach to jazz in terms of choice of materials and evolving a more sensitive, interactive way, rather than the impositional one favoured on the whole in jazz up to the 1950s - Lester Young being possibly his only predecessor in this regard, though others were on the same track at the time.
The of coure there were the feminist rock and punk bands of the late 70s who felt they should have a fair crack of the whip by excluding men.
It will be interesting to hear what the programme has to say on the subject.
Tom Service asks if masculine and feminine are discernible qualities in music. And how have these concepts had an impact on music over the centuries?
This was a question I asked on the forum when I was still a neophyte here. As the question was in the context of classical music, or so I thought, I didn't raise the issue of female versus male expression, directly applied in singing or playing instruments, or of whether feminine qualities exist in musics outside the Euroclassical tradition, eg in pop, rock and jazz-related genres, only that of style. In terms of music conceived on score I put myself at a disadvantage, and I was severely castigated for suggesting such a thing (and told off!
), and asked to produce examples of music by women composers and state categorically what it was that was specifically feminine in them. Had I been thinking more broadly I could have cited Miles Davis as thought of as one who, in contrast to Dizzy Gillespie, elected to express a less aggressive approach to jazz in terms of choice of materials and evolving a more sensitive, interactive way, rather than the impositional one favoured on the whole in jazz up to the 1950s - Lester Young being possibly his only predecessor in this regard, though others were on the same track at the time.The of coure there were the feminist rock and punk bands of the late 70s who felt they should have a fair crack of the whip by excluding men.
It will be interesting to hear what the programme has to say on the subject.
- in what sense, for example, is Miles' work "feminine", and are "exceptional aggressive[ness]" and "short-temper[ed]" characteristically "masculine"?
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