Week 8 Forum

Gender in music tech take 2


Bradley Leffler

Bradley discussed the possibility that music is gender specific due to marketing. In particular he focussed on the difference between a boy band marketed to 15-year-old girls and Heavy music generally being all male as well but appealing to a male audience. Yet he felt that the more technological the music got the further the ability to separate gender specific connotations, to the point of even being dehumanised. He used Kraftwerk as his primary example of this.

Laura Gadd

Laura also felt the music tech is not a gender specific discipline, although she did not go as far as to account the possibility of dehumanising it. She expanded upon the idea of gender within mainstream popular music, using specific examples of Pink, Kylie Minogue and Eminem. These specific examples backed her point, but it was quickly disputed that these are media conceptualised images portraying masculine and feminine roles. I agree. Amy broke down male lyricism as angry and female as emotional but as also stated there are numerous examples of the exact opposite. Ultimately these are just stereotypical perceptions created socially that should be challenged so we can reach a point of understanding that expression is a part of being human and emotions and approach to expression is illegitimate to gender.

Ben Cakebread

Ben chose to focus on Freddie Mercury, the lead singer from the glam rock group 'Queen.' Due to the sexual ambiguity of the band and the open gay lifestyle of Freddie, there was a general disliking by what Ben described as "cock rock Audiences." But in the end Queen managed to appeal to these audiences and become one of the most famous bands of their time. This is attributed by Ben to their adaptation of what could be deemed as more 'masculine' song writing styles within their traditional musical style. Which I feel further enforces my argument that gender/sexuality have no real impact on artistic expression of emotions, but rather it is the artist who choses how best to express themselves.

Peter Kelly

Peter summed up my feelings towards gender within music by using various historical examples of cultural attitudes being the prevalent force in people’s attitudes towards various issues including gender. These attitudes were quite frequently dictated by powerful forces of the time such as religion. Peter felt that the way to change these stereotypes was through advertising influencing social ideas. I understand his reasoning for this, but in my opinion that is already happening and quite often can be used in a negative as well as a positive way. Also I believe that no one has the right to dictate to anyone what is right or wrong (yes I am aware of the irony in that statement.) I feel to enlighten people about these social ideals so they are free to see through them and question gender, morality etc in there own way is a far more inductive towards positive mind-sets. Although varying views and opinions still need to be available for understanding of those questioning them.

References

Stephen Whittington. “Music Technology Forum – Week 8 – Gender in Music Technology, can you tell the difference?” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 3rd May, 2007.

Bradley Leffler. “Music Technology Forum – Week 8 – Gender in Music Technology, can you tell the difference?” Student Talk presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 3rd May, 2007.

Laura Gadd. “Music Technology Forum – Week 8 – Gender in Music Technology, can you tell the difference?” Student Talk presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 3rd May, 2007.

Ben Cakebread. “Music Technology Forum – Week 8 – Gender in Music Technology, can you tell the difference?” Student Talk presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 3rd May, 2007.

Peter Kelly. “Music Technology Forum – Week 8 – Gender in Music Technology, can you tell the difference?” Student Talk presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 3rd May, 2007.