notesdontmatter

Forum – Week 8 – “Gender in music technology, can you tell the difference? (Pt 2)”

Bradley Leffler made some interesting comparisons as our first presenter today. Personally I would argue that Pop music, if we are talking about the generic boy band / girl band / boy+girl band formulas that we see on VH today, is in the most mainstream of cases marketed equally at anyone who craves instantly catchy throwaway music that will satisfy them only until the next big hit is on the airwaves.

As for Metal, well everyone who doesn’t accept that Metal is the future of all is in denial, end of.

Perhaps some differences between a John Cage 4:33 performance by a man as opposed to a woman would be the choice of setting and the gender mix of the attending audiences. As much as we all love to poke fun at this piece I think it’s arguable that these factors would contribute to the recital being different on at least some level.

I don’t necessarily agree that Kraftwerk are “Dehumanising” music. If anything, to me they are doing their best to humanise musical sound created with electronic music technology. After all, they present their music in a human controlled live performance manner as if they were a regular four-piece boy band, the difference being that they dance around playing their electronic devices instead of vocally crooning. It may be electronic circuitry that is generating the tones but it’s still being controlled, selected and manipulated by people via various interfaces (such as the pocket calculator).


Laura Gadd made a brief foray into the territory of Amy’s chosen angle from last week. I found her comparison between Pink and Eminem a little odd. While I’m no expert on the singer, as far as Pop stars go everything I have heard about Pink strikes me as atypical of entertainers in the field as she seems to be an introspective, thoughtful and intelligent person. Eminem, who I have heard much more about strikes me as a violent, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, white trashy and a generally awful human being by contrast. His style certainly does not represent the statistical norm when it comes to male lyricism, but perhaps in the seedy world of Gangsta hip-hop his work is the standard that many aspire to. Examining the lyrical content of two similar artists (male and female respectively) may have exposed something worthy of analysis but this one just seemed like comparing apples to oranges.


Ben Cakebread’s insight into Queen’s successful marketing to the Glam and Art-rock audiences of the mid 70’s was certainly interesting and entertaining but I’m not sure where the gender in music technology angle was prevalent. Queen are certainly known for their willingness to embrace technology, with increasingly sophisticated studio and stage production, so maybe it would have been interesting to find out if they had worked with any females in the field over the course of their career.

So, how did Queen appeal to a “cock rock” audience? Brian May – pure genius.


Peter Kelly had many a random angle to explore on the issue but I found the delivery a little too complex and dry to really make a comment at this stage…


Reference:

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.

posted by David J Dowling @ 6:37 PM