Week One: Discovering Women in Music

As reluctant as I was about this class, just the Preface of the textbook helped open my eyes to what a good experience this class will be. It will not primarily be about women empowerment only, but a realization of a whole other aspect of music not regularly studied. I have come to the realization that this class will broaden my musical horizons, and help me grow as a musician.

For example, I have never considered the nuances and suggestions of music and story-lines written by males. It all seems so clear now that men write women as being crazy. The unstable tonality Lorraine talks about is all true. In most music written by men, men are written as being stable, and women are written as being overly sensual and erotic. It almost disgusts me how demeaning old Disney movies are. I will still love them, but it gives me a whole new perspective on what is really going on socially and culturally with these movies. It will be interesting to see the growth in music written by women, and if this will effect how men portray women in their own music.

I found it very interesting when Lorraine pointed out the fact that some women don't like to be identified as women composers. I don't believe it is important to identify music as being written by a women, so it is going to sound a certain way. I do believe it is important to take the fact that a piece has been written by a women into consideration when analyzing the music. Certain stylistic choices can be better understood when related to a situation that could only happen to a woman. The mere fact that women are different from men should be taken into consideration when analyzing any music, whether it was written by a woman or not.

That's pretty much all the commentary I have for Chapter 1. Hope you enjoyed it.