On women and composing

[jean]

The morality of whether or not to accept it would depend on how far the provider of the funds attempted to call the tune, I suppose.

[ahinton]

The morality of whether or not to accept it would depend on how far the provider of the funds attempted to call the tune, I suppose.

..and on the extent of the needs of the composer/author/&c., presumably...

[teamsaint]

But the question is surely why they are "significant to many"? - in other words, is it because of received opinion or rational response to demonstrable facts?


So what do you think about the two examples that I cited?

One might go on to ask whether women composers who have been taught by women composers write differently to those who have been taught by men - and then what of the music of male composers who have been taught by women? And so on and so on. But what can the answers be and how might they be arrived at in such a way as to create a consensus by reason of them being provable?

It is important to listen to what people say, as regards their intentions.

But also important to recognise, that composers, especially women, do not operate in a gender neutral environment, and this will likely affect their work, to some extent, at some point.

As to why this might be significant to the listener,there might be many reasons. Acknowledgement of careers cut short, thwarted, or circumscribed by male dominated businesses, might be just one area.

Hard to imagine listening to so many women composers, particularly from earlier than 40 or 50 years ago, without thinking about " what if s", for example. That sometimes unfulfilled potential is important to recognise, and perhaps results in a greater cherishing of that which we do have to enjoy.

[jean]

That more women would have composed more if given the chance is hardly in doubt.

That what they composed would have been different in some way determinable by reference to their sex is a quite different question.

[teamsaint]

That more women would have composed more if given the chance is hardly in doubt.

That what they composed would have been different in some way determinable by reference to their sex is a quite different question.

Yes.
And as discussed up thread,gender issues surely do affect the style and content of some music written by some women, even if this might not be discernible in a blind test.


( and to answer the earlier post by DS, I listened to about half of the programme,and the music that I heard sounded very enjoyable.)

[Lat-Literal]

It is important to listen to what people say, as regards their intentions.

But also important to recognise, that composers, especially women, do not operate in a gender neutral environment, and this will likely affect their work, to some extent, at some point.

As to why this might be significant to the listener,there might be many reasons. Acknowledgement of careers cut short, thwarted, or circumscribed by male dominated businesses, might be just one area.

Hard to imagine listening to so many women composers, particularly from earlier than 40 or 50 years ago, without thinking about " what if s", for example. That sometimes unfulfilled potential is important to recognise, and perhaps results in a greater cherishing of that which we do have to enjoy.

Hello TS, While your point about Kate Bush is well made, I think as soon as there are lyrics - along with voice - it is a different sort of matter. Rokia Traore and Oumou Sangare have each performed songs from the perspective of women in a different society, ie Mali. Men could sing them, representing the voice of women, but they would be unlikely to do so. In terms of music on its own, I cannot hear the music of Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebrou without being aware of the fact that she is an Ethiopian nun. The fact that it is an Ethiopian nun playing the music she does is very unusual. The knowledge that she is an Ethiopian gives her music a distinctive Ethiopian nun sort of quality! Whether without that knowledge it would sound quite as unique or it could even be identifiable as produced by a woman is debatable. Prisms are therefore significant - or they can be - with concepts added to any sensual appreciation. I write as someone who when feeding ducks on a pond does not necessarily find it more enjoyable to have someone commenting about which ones are male, female, friendly, anti-social, belligerent, frightened, needy or greedy. I just want the colour and sound, impression and feeling arising from the entire experience.

[ahinton]

It is important to listen to what people say, as regards their intentions.

Of course it is, otherwise one could not expect to be able to know whether one might agree or disagree with either what they say or their intentions in saying it.

But also important to recognise, that composers, especially women, do not operate in a gender neutral environment, and this will likely affect their work, to some extent, at some point.

Why "especially" women? None of us - not only composers "operates in a gender neutral environment" for the simple reason that there's more than one gender of human beings on the planet, but why and how this fact might directly and identifiably affect the content of anyone's creative work remains to be answered.

As to why this might be significant to the listener,there might be many reasons. Acknowledgement of careers cut short, thwarted, or circumscribed by male dominated businesses, might be just one area.

This is a quite different matter. Firstly, the significance or otherwise for the listener will vary from listener to listener and would only arise in any case when the listener is aware in advance of the gender of the composer/s to whose music he/she is about to listen. Your second sentence, whilst pertinent to issues relating to women participating prefoessionally in music making, is a social or socio-political matter that has nothing to do with the kind of music that women write or have written (can you imagine, for example, a male dominate business commissioning a work from a woman composer and stipulating that she must only write in certain keys and the duration of the work must not exceed, say, ten minutes?); do you suppose, for example, that anyone has ever "cut short, thwarted or circumscribed" the careers of women composers purely on the grounds of the kind of music that they write?

Hard to imagine listening to so many women composers, particularly from earlier than 40 or 50 years ago, without thinking about " what if s", for example. That sometimes unfulfilled potential is important to recognise, and perhaps results in a greater cherishing of that which we do have to enjoy.

This would be only one "what if" in music, even in the realms of "unfulfilled (or only partially fulfilled) potential"; one might as easily - and, I suspect, rather more likely - speculate upon the kind of music that, for example, Lekeu, Schubert, Mozart, Chopin or indeed Lili Boulanger might have written had they each survived into their 70s or 80s, whereas what I think you're referring to here is "what if" far fewer women had been actively discouraged from composing and that, of course, is a far harder one to answer because at least we know what the five composers that I mentioned wrote during their tragically truncated lives whereas it could be no more than merely idle to speculate about what other women composers there might have been in the absence of such discouragement (and then on what kind of music they might have written).

[ahinton]

That more women would have composed more if given the chance is hardly in doubt.

That what they composed would have been different in some way determinable by reference to their sex is a quite different question.

Of course. The former isn't even a question but a statement of fact and the latter is a question but an unanswerable one.

[ahinton]

Yes.
And as discussed up thread,gender issues surely do affect the style and content of some music written by some women, even if this might not be discernible in a blind test.

If you believe that "gender issues surely do affect the style and content of some music written by some women" but accept at the same time that this "might not be discernible in a blind test", how can you be so sure? Never mind blind tests; are you not choosing to depend for your assertion upon blind faith (for whatever reason)? Furthermore, why only "some music written by some women"? Are you suggesting that not all women are susceptible to this and/or that those who may be so are only affected by such considerations in some but not all of their works - i.e. they have and exrcise some kind of choice in the matter? If either or both of these were to be the case, mightn't that alone risk undermining the very notion itself?

[ahinton]

Hello TS, While your point about Kate Bush is well made, I think as soon as there are lyrics - along with voice - it is a different sort of matter.

Of course it is. This is why I posed the (arguably rhetorical) questions as to whether Argerich and Ibragimova play like women and Pollini and Vengerov play like men and whether composers of either gender who have been taught by women composers will write - or might be expected to - write differently than they would have done had they been taught by male composers (not that there yet appear to have been any attempts to answer these). When you listen to Kate Bush - or Felicity Lott or Nina Simone or Sarah Leonard or Ella Fitzgerald (all eminently worth listening to, by the way!), you know that you're listening to a woman singing, but what of the four instrumentalist examples that I gave?

[jean]

...as discussed up thread, gender issues surely do affect the style and content of some music written by some women, even if this might not be discernible in a blind test...

Can you be more specific about the 'gender issues' you have in mind? It's far too broad a category to be useful as it stands.

[Lat-Literal]

Of course it is. This is why I posed the (arguably rhetorical) questions as to whether Argerich and Ibragimova play like women and Pollini and Vengerov play like men and whether composers of either gender who have been taught by women composers will write - or might be expected to - write differently than they would have done had they been taught by male composers (not that there yet appear to have been any attempts to answer these). When you listen to Kate Bush - or Felicity Lott or Nina Simone or Sarah Leonard or Ella Fitzgerald (all eminently worth listening to, by the way!), you know you're listening to a woman singing, but what of the four instrumentalist examples that I gave?

I'm sceptical about any universal application of gender traits in terms of thinking and feeling, especially when the part that is social or environmental is removed. We know that historically gender imbalance in broad social terms had impacts on outlook and behaviour. But people behave differently in war or industry or business or management or trade union. All such aspects of life having originally been ostensibly male, traits associated with them are seen as male. There may not be very much more to it. There is something about gender trends being broadly linked to physicality but there are also a lot of common "opposite of the truth" perceptions. The one that always strikes me is that women are the talkers. I would say that it is men who as a trend talk the most. With the four instrumental examples you give, each of those individuals has been seen. We know how they approach what they do physically and playing music is a very physical activity. The same is not quite true of composition. The idea that women have to behave like men to succeed like men - understandable - and I implied something not dissimilar in an earlier post on this thread - is fine as a concept but the language is wrong. It should really be that they adapt to what has historically been the way for certain kinds of men but not other men. I don't identify with men or women whose character is defined by professional power roles.

[teamsaint]

Hello TS, While your point about Kate Bush is well made, I think as soon as there are lyrics - along with voice - it is a different sort of matter. Rokia Traore and Oumou Sangare have each performed songs from the perspective of women in a different society, ie Mali. Men could sing them, representing the voice of women, but they would be unlikely to do so. In terms of music on its own, I cannot hear the music of Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebrou without being aware of the fact that she is an Ethiopian nun. The fact that it is an Ethiopian nun playing the music she does is very unusual. The knowledge that she is an Ethiopian gives her music a distinctive Ethiopian nun sort of quality! Whether without that knowledge it would sound quite as unique or it could even be identifiable as produced by a woman is debatable. Prisms are therefore significant - or they can be - with concepts added to any sensual appreciation. I write as someone who when feeding ducks on a pond does not necessarily find it more enjoyable to have someone commenting about which ones are male, female, friendly, anti-social, belligerent, frightened, needy or greedy. I just want the colour and sound, impression and feeling arising from the entire experience.

hi Lat

The point about lyrics and voice is clearly important, and in fact I touched on it in an earlier post.
Actually,I simply threw Kate Bush's name out there as a possible example of somebody whose music might be thought by some to be identifiably female . As I suggested in my very cautious post, I am far from confident about this,( and it isn't something that I am unduly concerned about)but that doesn't mean it isn't worth discussing.

[teamsaint]

Can you be more specific about the 'gender issues' you have in mind? It's far too broad a category to be useful as it stands.

I think the ones that occured to me would be career opportunities and financial status, ( bringing us back towards the R3 programme), but I am sure that there are others.

[Lat-Literal]

hi Lat

The point about lyrics and voice is clearly important, and in fact I touched on in an earlier post.
Actually,I simply threw Kate Bush's name out there as a possible example of somebody whose music might be thought by some to be identifiably female . As I suggested in my very cautious post, I am far from confident about this,( and it isn't something that I am unduly concerned about)but that doesn't mean it isn't worth discussing.

Agree 100%.