Gender
and Electronic Music...Gender
and Electronic Music...In her paper at the ICMC'95, Andra McCartney focused on women composers.
She interviewed many Canadian women composers, and gave an overview of the
specific experiences and practices of these women composers. This approach
focuses on the differences women make. McCartney not only reports negative
experiences of women with sexism in electronic music practice. She also
shows interesting positive specific feminine practices of electronic music
(including teaching etc.).
My paper at the ICMC'95 was not focused on (female or male) composers, but
on the music itself. The subject of this paper was computer compositions
with voice sounds, and the question was: Do male and female voices have
different roles in this type of music? The answer was: yes. First of all,
there are a lot of compositions for live singing female vocalist and tape
or computer, but almost no compositions for live singing male vocalist and
tape/computer. Furthermore, female voices in computer music often sing non-verbal,
melismatic vocal lines, whereas, male voices in computer music tend to speak
more. This is a similar gender pattern as had been found in film (Silverman
1988) and nineteenth- century opera (Poizat, Dame 1994). This paper was
concerned with representations of gender in computer compositions.
Instead of focusing on composers or compositions, one can also focus on
listeners. This approach is developed by Dame (1994), but she doesn't apply
it to electronic music. Women can, as 'resisting listeners', create different
interpretations and different reception practices of musical pieces.
A focus on performers would also be possible. I tried to developed this
a little in my papers for the ICMC'95 and ICMC'96.
Probably, there are many other ways to study women's or gender issues in
electronic music, and I would like to invite anyone whose work in this field
I haven't mentioned, to contact me.
Last but not least, I think that an important omission in the research regarding
gender issues in electronic music so far, is the topic of men in electronic
music. Why are so many men involved in electronic music? How is electronic
music related to masculinity? Can we find traces or representations of masculinity
or reactions to masculinity in electronic compositions or in hard- and software
used in electronic music? Many more questions can be thought of. Exploring
these topics would give us more insight in electronic music and its practices.
But personally, I first want to focus on female voices in electronic music.
Since electronic music is so much a man's world, it seems a good idea to
me to pay special attention to female aspects. But gender issues are related
to femininity and masculinity, to women and men. Focusing on masculinity
seems to me a very interesting issue for future research. Furthermore, what
is needed urgently, I think, is that men in electronic music also reflect
on their roles, on masculinity and on gender.
