Is there a gendered aesthetics? A few good questions

When I wrote my Violin Sonata last year, I was grappling with several questions from the realm of New Musicology. I thought I would share them here to see if they might get your creative juices flowing...

1. Is there a feminine aesthetic of music? Does music by women sound "different?" If so, how?

2. By the same token, is there a masculine sound of music? Is Beethoven masculine? Bartok? Bernstein?

3. Do composers ever borrow (if that's possible) the other aesthetic?

4. Are there any hierarchal values encoded in music? For instance, what is the underlying, deeper cultural meaning to the notion of a feminine ending?

5. What does it mean that so many conductors and composers are men? On the faculties of major conservatories, how many women do you find teaching composition or conducting?

6. Does any of this matter? How can you support your answer?

7. Before you start your next composition, ask yourself, "What would my music sound like if it was my 'feminine' style'?" Or your my masculine style, for that matter. (Note this question has value no matter what your own gender is!)

A political lesson

In 2008, Maureen Dowd, a writer for the New York Times, analyzed why Hillary Clinton lost out to Barack Obama in the democratic race for president.

Dowd wrote, "[Hillary Clinton] has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining." (NYTimes, 27 Feb 2008)

Whether Dowd's assessment of Hillary Clinton is accurate is debatable. But I was reminded of some composers I've met who have had enormous success: Paul Moravec and Chen Yi and Jennifer Higdon, for instance, truly follow this non-whining, confident way of life. It might seem hard to live every day this way, but composition careers are about more than composing; politics counts, too.

What Chefs Can Teach Composers

It's not a show I usually watch, but I happened across something called Hell's Kitchen on television the other night. For the uninitiated, it's a reality TV show in which a celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsey, (pictured here) tutors several apprentice chefs. Troubles ensue: the risotto gets burned, the pork is raw, the pasta is ready but the sauce isn't. This results in purportedly amusing tirades by Gordon Ramsey, who yells and screams at his charges. A fun feature of the show is the constant *bleeping* out of shouted obscenities.

I thought, "Who are these people sitting here waiting for food? Who would ever want to eat in this restaurant??" Certainly we would not sit still in a restaurant that couldn't get its act together. We would move on to some different dining establishment.

Yet, classical music audiences are expected to sit still through all manner of swill. And audiences have become fed up with it and moved on. You've certainly been to a restaurant where the food was bad, or the service was bad, and you left vowing never to eat there again. This has certainly happened in classical music.

Of course, taste is in the mouth of the beholder--or the ears of the listener. Yet we must acknowledge there's a reason why chocolate cake is more popular than broccoli.

"Ah," the avant-garde will say, "but broccoli is good for you! Cake is nothing more than sweet, empty calories; we can't live on only chocolate." True. But the finer dining options out there --the Michelin three-star restaurants-- are able to serve up complex menu items that are good for you and appeal to an audience. There's a difference between The Four Seasons and Burger King.

The philosopher Theodor Adorno stipulated that composers are free to compose with no need to satisfy an audience's hunger. That's okay as far as it goes, but I, for one, do want my music to be consumed by audiences. So I aim to create in that same arena that a chef does: Something enjoyably nutritious and palatable, but complex, too.  

Getting back to updating

Wow...time can fly when you are not paying attention! It is time for me to get back into posting on this blog. Apologies for the delay!