Friday, June 17, 2011

Some Thoughts on the Gender Narrative

I constantly go back and forth on whether or not I like exhibits, concerts, etc. devoted to female artists (see my post on the specialty concert for my usual opinion). Although I am highly critical of things that are gender-specific because I worry about inherent issues of marginalization, I do think good arguments can be made either way for their existence, and this weekend I stumbled upon a museum that made an excellent case for why gender-specific spaces are important.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Women in Science... and Music

I came across this article in the New York Times a few days ago, and while it's interesting for several reasons, I immediately started thinking about how it relates to music. I have a personal interest as the daughter of two scientists (who are also wonderful parents) but I think pretty much everything these women said about a life in science applies to a life in music, and probably many other fields that at one point were (and perhaps still are, in some circumstances) hostile to women.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

How Do We Encourage Audiences to Listen?

After considering Sarah’s last post on the curiosity of art demographics, I spent much of this week speculating about why it often seems to be considered cool to "consume" culture in the form of films, plays, gallery exhibits, etc., but not to seek out new music. 

Is this because we are such a visual culture? Music is contextualized for us on an everyday basis as providing an emotional backdrop in movies, TV shows, commercials, etc. People are becoming more and more programmed to understand the visual as the foreground and the auditory as the background, no matter how important and vital that “background” may be in shaping aesthetic, tone, and meaning. Perhaps this commercial reality bleeds over into the artistic realms?