On women and composing

[ahinton]

With the four instrumental examples you give, each of those individuals has been seen.

Well, of course they have, but I was not referring to their appearnce when performing but to how they play - more specifcally what their playing sounds like.

We know how they approach what they do physically and playing music is a very physical activity.

But again it's not the physicality aspect that I'm talking about; after all, playing music is just as much a physical activity for women as it is for men. I'm referring to how these performers play and what their playing sounds like and whether these can be gender determined solely by listening to them on radio or on record.

The same is not quite true of composition. The idea that women have to behave like men to succeed like men while understandable - 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.

Yes, composition is a largely sedentary and therefore not especially physical occupation (except, perhaps for Augusta Read Thomas!) but, once again, since we're not discussing physicality but playing manner and sound and composition content, that's hardly the point, really.

[ahinton]

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.

Of course it's worth discussing but that does not of itself justify jumping to conclusions that are unsubstantiable (if that's a word)!

[ahinton]

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.

But, once again, imppartant as they are, these are social and/or socio-political issues that do not and cannot relate specifically, identifably and directly to the nature and content of music written (or, for that matter, performed) by women.

[jean]

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.

'Career opportunities and financial status' would affect the first of the distinctions I made in #46, but not the second.

They are quite separate, and it's pointless discussing them as though they weren't.

(As I see ah has just written).

[teamsaint]

Of course it's worth discussing but that does not of itself justify jumping to conclusions that are unsubstantiable (if that's a word)!

I haven't " jumped to conclusions. "

that is your interpretation.

[Lat-Literal]

Well, of course they have, but I was not referring to their appearnce when performing but to how they play - more specifcally what their playing sounds like.


But again it's not the physicality aspect that I'm talking about; after all, playing music is just as much a physical activity for women as it is for men. I'm referring to how these performers play and what their playing sounds like and whether these can be gender determined solely by listening to them on radio or on record.


Yes, composition is a largely sedentary and therefore not especially physical occupation (except, perhaps for Augusta Read Thomas!) but, once again, since we're not discussing physicality but playing manner and sound and composition content, that's hardly the point, really.

Well, I am thinking of weight in playing style.

Men as a trend might have to adapt approaches towards lighter touch and women as a trend might have to throw themselves into it more.

But I think it is very broad brush, this, considering all the other aspects - fiery, stormy, glassy, delicate, calm, neat etc etc. etc.

[teamsaint]

J

'Career opportunities and financial status' would affect the first of the distinctions I made in #46, but not the second.

They are quite separate, and it's pointless discussing them as though they weren't.

I said in a much earlier post, # 34, and agreed with you as well that they are really quite seperate issues.

It isn't me that is connecting them.

[jean]

You do make a distinction in #34:

An understanding that there are gender and other issues, which we inevitably bring to our appreciation of music, ( and which are also brought to the composition process), and the possible ability to detect the gender of a composer by listening alone, are two completely different things.

But it's not the one I'm making, is it?

[ahinton]

I haven't " jumped to conclusions. "

that is your interpretation.

My "interpretation" is based solely upon what you have written but, if you believe it to be wrong, can you please explain on what grounds you say so and what it is that you believe you have done instead?

[ahinton]

Well, I am thinking of weight in playing style.

Men as a trend might have to adapt approaches towards lighter touch and women as a trend might have to throw themselves into it more.

But I think it is very broad brush, this, considering all the other aspects - fiery, stormy, glassy, delicate, calm, neat etc etc. etc.

What does "weight in playing style" mean? - and whilst the deployment of weight might be a matter for pianists, of what particular relevance is it to oboists, organists, horn players &c.?

There appears to be a suggestion in what you write that the rôle of physicality in instrumental performance is such that it might place at least some women at some kind of disadvantage and accordingly require them to make greater effort to achieve results akin to what a male performer might achieve ("throw themselves into it more", as in); apart from the fact that it's far from obvious (at least to me) how a woman would - or could - or might find herself having to try to - "throw herself into" performing a Mozart horn concerto, Strauss's oboe concerto or any given organ work by Bach, Liszt, Reger or Messiaen, the physique of any given woman instrumentalist will differ from that of any other who plays the same instrument at least as much as it will differ from those of males who play the same instrument.

As to composition, whilst we agree that physicality does not enter that arena because it's a largely sedentary activity (or at least the writing down / music setting of the work is so) and so any differences of approach, nature and content between the music of women composers and that of men composers would be down to something else that has yet to be identified and I suspect that this is because there's nothing specific to be identified as there are no provable differences of approach and we do not yet seem to have encountered evidence from any women composes that they even feel as though their approach to composing either has some kind of gender commonality or is perceptibly different from that of men.

To summarise, as best I am able...

Until neuroscientific researches have reached a stage of advancement sufficient to demonstrate that there are indeed such differences that can be codified, identified and illustrated, any contention that women's compositional activities are fundamentally different to those of men purely for reasons of the gender difference cannot be more than speculation, often inappropriately and irrelevantly influenced by external gender issues of a social and/or soci-political nature.

As to instrumental performance (we'll omit reference to vocal performance for obvious reasons), the nature and degree of physical energies of all kinds that it requires varies considerably from instrument to instrument, woman to woman and man to man because no two instruments call for the same and no two performers possess identical physical attributes; someone once said to me that Sorabji's larger piano works are (in his opinion) unsuitable for women to perform beause they place demands on intellectual and physical stamina that are by nature beyond them, to which I can only retort that it was probably a good thing that no one told Donna Amato that after she'd completed the world première of that composer's near-2½-hour Piano Symphony No. 5 in New York otherwise they might have received very short shrift indeed...

[teamsaint]

You do make a distinction in #34:


But it's not the one I'm making, is it?

No, on re reading I do see they are separate points.

[ahinton]

No, on re reading I do see they are separate points.

The distinction was clear from the outset but, whilst I'm pleased that you can now see it, what is your take on the part of it that's pertinent to this discussion?

[Lat-Literal]

What does "weight in playing style" mean? - and whilst the deployment of weight might be a matter for pianists, what relevance is it to oboists, organists, horn players &c.?

OK - I am happy to keep my comments to composition which was where they were when this commenced!

[ahinton]

OK - I am happy to keep my comments to composition which was where they were when this commenced!

Fair enough, beause one might suppose that you could be on safer ground in so doing, but let's therefore have some comments about women's attitudes and approaches to the act of composition and the nature and content of what it is that they write that clarify and illustrate that it really is different in some way to those of male composers and can therefore be discerned by listeners merely by listening. Good luck!

[Lat-Literal]

Fair enough, beause one might suppose that you could be on safer ground in so doing, but let's therefore have some comments about women's attitudes and approaches to the act of composition and the nature and content of what it is that they write that clarify and illustrate that it really is different in some way to those of male composers and can therefore be discerned by listeners merely by listening. Good luck!

But notwithstanding that any strengths I have are not in the area of playing music, hence my reluctance to talk in terms of the technical approaches to playing music, I had a feeling that you had got the wrong end of the stick here. I am one of the people who has been putting forward the argument that in composition it isn't substantially different!