Women in Music syllabus - Music 208, Spring 1992 Lydia Hamessley 204 List Hall, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 13323 (315) 859-4354 Office Hours: MW 10-11 and by appointment Internet: lhamessl@itsmail1.hamilton.edu Music 208 Women in Music. An examination of popular and art music from the perspective of women. Topics include women as performers and composers, the depiction of women in music, musical criticism, and cultural values that have affected women's participation in musical life. (Writing-intensive.) Prerequisite, 101 or consent of instructor. Course Rationale The role of women in music is not often addressed in general introductions to music or in music history survey courses. Nevertheless, the last ten years has seen a surge of interest in discovering the roles that women have played in music. Works by women are now available in modern editions and recordings, and biographies of women composers, conductors, performers, and educators are appearing. Aside from these bio-bibliographic projects, feminist theorists working in music have begun to look critically at music by women as well as men, clarifying the effects that gender ideologies have had in musics of all historical periods, genres, and cultures. Music 208 is the first and perhaps only opportunity Hamilton students will have to become acquainted with this current scholarship regarding the long tradition of women in music. Course Goals The goals of this course are to introduce and examine works by women, to explore the issues of gender ideology as it affects women's participation in musical life, and to investigate the ways that women are depicted in music. The course will not concentrate on Western or art traditions only. While I plan to bring an historical perspective to the class, I will not be proceeding strictly by a chronology. Instead, the class will be arranged by topic so that a comparative approach can be used. The following is an outline of the sorts of topics I hope to cover. I would like the course to challenge each student to examine her or his own beliefs about music, talent, creativity, gender, and their own place within contemporary musical culture. Music and sexual politics The politics of exclusion, canon formation, the effects of race, ethnicity, and sexuality in this process, feminist aesthetics, French feminist theory regarding voice and music (Catherine Clment and Hlne Cixous), the essentialist debate (particularly with regard to the possibility of the existence of a "female" musical voice). Places and situations in which women have traditionally been music- makers. Medieval and Renaissance convent life, the Italian courtesan mileau, women as singers at life-cycle rites and rituals, American parlour music, the female soloist in the Javanese gamelan, Eastern- European, Middle-Eastern, and Balkan lament traditions. Images of women in music by men Critical readings of repertoire; i.e. opera, the symphonic tradition of the Enlightenment, Native American ceremonial music, Renaissance lyric song and the courtly love tradition, Robert Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben, American country-western music. Alternate images in music by women and the politics of resistance The mystical music of Hildegard of Bingen, performance art (Diamanda Galas and Laurie Anderson), the courtesan tradition in India, women rappers, feminist resistance by 17th century Italian women composers (Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi), the operas of Ethel Smyth, gender identity in the musical expression of the Kalapalo of Brazil, women blues singers (Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey), the Roches, women in jazz. Gendered writings about music Music theorists and "feminine" cadences, the gendering of the "beautiful and the sublime" (Eduard Hanslick's On the Beautiful in Music), misogyny and homosexual panic in the writings of Charles Ives, metaphors of the body in musical theoretical writing, "a pretty girl is like a melody." The body in music Gender coding of musical instruments, dance music (Irene Castle, Madonna, African drumming and dance), women in rock. Sexuality in music The lesbian in Lulu, Ethel Smyth and sapphonics, Tchaikovsky and Schubert as feminized (i.e. homosexual) composers, "women's music." Course Materials The materials for the course will be of several varieties. There is no one suitable text, so many readings will be articles and books on reserve. However, you will need to buy the following (in the bookstore): Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. Ellen Koskoff (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989). Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Carol Neuls-Bates (New York: Harper & Row, 1982). Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, eds. Jane Bowers and Judith Tick (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). Women in Music: A History, ed. Karin Pendle (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Historical Anthology of Music by Women, ed. James Briscoe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). I also recommend that you buy the following: McClary, Susan. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1991). Three cassette tape set to accompany Historical Anthology of Music by Women, ed. James Briscoe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). I will supplement these texts and articles with theoretical essays, poetry, fiction, videos, and film. You will also read authors who deal with women as artists in other fields (literature and art history specifically) as well as primary sources. There will also be a significant listening component to the course. Course Requirements This will be a course based on the discussion of the readings and listening assignments as well as lectures. A discussion course cannot work if you are not prepared to talk about issues raised in assignments. The quantity and quality of your contributions in class will influence your grade. The writing component of this course will be from a variety of possibilities such as reviews of musical events by or concerning women, position papers regarding the theoretical readings, critical essays about pieces of music, and short papers on research topics generated by the students. You will keep an academic journal throughout the semester. An academic journal is a forum for you to develop and examine your ideas. It is not a personal journal in which you write only for yourself and on any topic. You will use the journal to respond to questions, discussions, and your listening. Respond to the readings and grapple with problems, thoughts, questions that you have. It will also be appropriate for you to write about your own experiences and feelings as they arise. Discover your personal connection to the material we will cover. The writing style for the journal should be your own. Write in a way that feels natural to you. Aim for expressing your beliefs, but go beyond mere description. Why do you feel or think a certain way? You may find it useful to begin with questions and then try to come to the answers through thinking and writing. Your academic journal will be a part of your grade, and I will occasionally ask to see them. I may make comments in the journal. If you hand in a journal of at least 25 pages in length at the end of the semester you will receive a B on the journal. If entries show evidence of grappling with issues, of a quest for understanding, and of effort to develop and support views, you will receive an A on the journal. Music 208 - Women in Music Writings about Women in Music January 21: Intro Journal entry in class: First musical memory; list of women composers already familiar with. January 23: The Woman Composer Question; essentialism vs. constructionism Readings: Neuls-Bates, Anthology, essays 34-38, 46-47. January 28: The Woman Composer Question, continued Readings: Linda Nochlin, "Why are there no great women artists?" Art and Sexual Politics, ed. Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker (NY: Macmillan, 1973). Eva Rieger, "Dolce semplice? The Changing Role of Women in Music," Feminist Aesthetics; ed. Gisela Ecker (1986). Record jacket that actually says the group sings "with balls." !! xerox January 30: Gendered writings about music Readings: Ives, Memos, pg. 73-74. Also read Grove Dictionary of Music on Ives. Cone, Musical Form and Musical Practice, pp. 25-31; 38-45. Grove Dictionary of Music, Harvard Dictionary of Music, cadences. (Try looking under cadence first, and see where you get; try also feminine/masculine cadence or ending.) Susan McClary, Feminine Endings, pp. 9-12 [Section 2]. Listening: Ives, String Quartet No. 2. (several recordings on reserve) Tape 1: examples from Cone reading: Mozart, Sonata in A (K. 331); Chopin Prelude in A maj, Op. 28, no. 7; Chopin Polonaise in A maj, Op. 40, no. 1. Traditional places of women's music-making February 4: Salon/Parlor Music - Lieder and Keyboard Pieces Reading: Pendle, Women & Music, Chapters 5, 6, 7. Tick & Bowers, Women Making Music, Chapters 9, 10, 13. Neuls-Bates, Anthology, Essays 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23. Edward Rothstein, NY Times review, on reserve. Listening: Jacquet de la Guerre, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Maria Theresia von Paradis, Josephine Lang, Clara Schumann, Ccile Chaminade, Amy Mary Beach. Journal: Assuming the voice of Fanny Mendelssohn, write a response to the letters she received and to Edward Rothstein's article. What would you like Fanny to say about the barriers she is faced with? February 6: Medieval and Renaissance convent life, the Italian courtesan mileau Reading: Pendle, Women & Music, Chapters 1, 2, 3. Tick & Bowers, Women Making Music, Chapters 2, 5. Neuls-Bates, Anthology, Essays 1-4, 7-9. Joan Kelly, "Did Women Have a Renaissance?" (Xerox on reserve). Joanne Riley, "Tarquinia Molza (1542-1617): A Case Study of Women, Music, and Society in the Renaissance," The Musical Woman, v. 2 , pp. 470-92. (Book on reserve) Anderson & Zinsser, A History of Their Own, v. 1, pp. 183- 213; v. 2, pp. 26-43, 62-82. Listening: Hildegard von Bingen, Anne Boleyn, Maddalena Casulana, Isabella Leonarda, Concerto della donna February 11: Women as singers at lifecycle rites and rituals, Eastern- European, Middle-Eastern, and Balkan lament traditions. Reading: Jane Bowers, "Women's Music and the Life Cycle." (Xerox on reserve) Karin Pendle, Women & Music, "Women in Non-Western Music." Chapter 14. Ellen Koskoff, "Gender, Power, and Music," The Musical Woman, v. 3, p. 769-88. Jeff Titon, Worlds of Music, pp. 170-183. Susan Auerbach, "From Singing to Lamenting: Women's Musical Role in a Greek Village," in Koskoff, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, pp.25-43. Elizabeth Tolbert, "Magico-Religious Power and Gender in the Karelian Lament," in Herndon, Music, Gender and Culture, pp. 41-57. Listening: Village Music of Bulgaria , Rumanian laments. Images of women in Music by Men February 13: Popular music Readings: Simon Frith, "Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music," (133-150) and John Shepherd, "Music and Male Hegemony," (151-172) both in Susan McClary and Richard Leppert, eds., Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Viewing: Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Rock Video February 18: The symphonic tradition of the Enlightenment. Reading: Karin Pendle, Women & Music, "Marianne von Martinez," pp. 86-88. Susan McClary, Feminine Endings, (section 3), pp. 12-17. Jeanne Bamberger and Howard Brofsky, The Art of Listening, 229-33. Listening: Marianne von Martinez, Joseph Haydn. February 20: The gendering of the "beautiful and the sublime." Reading: Susan McClary, Feminine Endings, Chapter 3, pp. 53-56 & 67-79. Eduard Hanslick's On the Beautiful in Music Tchaikovsky letters, handout. ("Chaikovsky on Inspiration and Self-Expression" in Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, eds., Music in the Western World: A History in Documents (New York: Schirmer, 1984), 397-401. Schiller, Naive and Sentimental Poetry; On the Sublime, handouts. Burke, Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, handouts. Listening: Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Farrenc. February 25: Renaissance lyric song and the courtly love tradition, music by women trobaritz Reading: Pendle, Women & Music, pp. 10-17. Tick & Bowers, Women Making Music, Chapter 3, "Jougleresses and Trobairitz: Secular Musicians in Medieval France, pp. 39-61. Neuls-Bates, Anthology, Essays 5-6 "Music in Courtly Life" and "A Letter from Guillaume de Machaut " in Weiss/Taruskin, pp. 55-59 & 76-77. Meg Bogin, The Women Troubadours (New York: Paddington, 1976), 37-76. Also scan through poetry, pp. 80-156. Listening: Machaut, Comtessa da Dia, Anonymous, Adam de la Hale February 27: Opera, La Boheme Reading: Catherine Clement, Opera, or the Undoing of Women, "A Moonlight Pierrot," pp. 83-87. Listening: Puccini, La Boheme (video of opera on reserve in library). Viewing: Thriller March 3: Opera, Carmen Reading: Clement, "Fareman," pp. 48-53. McClary, Feminine Endings, Chapter 3, pp. 67 (Section 1 on Carmen). Listening: Bizet, Carmen (video of opera on reserve in library). March 5: Robert Schumann Reading: Ruth Solie, "Whose Life? The Gendered Self in Schumann's Frauenliebe Songs," in Music and Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 219-40. Listening: Schumann BREAK Alternate images in music by women and the politics of resistance March 24: Guest Composer: Katherine Hoover March 26: Discussion of Hoover; Nadia and Lili Boulanger Reading: Neuls-Bates, Anthology, "Nadia Boulanger," essay 41. Pendle, Women & Music, "Nadia Boulanger," 189-92. Listening: Boulanger March 31: Francesca Caccini Reading: Neuls-Bates, Anthology, "Francesca Caccini: Singer- Composer," essay 10. Pendle, Women & Music, "The Caccinis," 58-61. Briscoe, HAMW, pp. 22-24. Listening: Caccini, Campana April 2: Barbara Strozzi Reading: Pendle, Women & Music, "Barbara Strozzi," pp. 61-63; Bowers & Tick, Women Making Music, "The Voice of Barbara Strozzi," 168-90. Listening: Strozzi April 7: Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre Reading: Neuls-Bates, Anthology, "Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre," essay 11 Pendle, Women & Music, "Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre," pp. 72-74. Mary D. Garrard, "Artemisia and Susanna," in Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds., Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany (New York: Harper and Row, 1982). Listening: de la Guerre April 9: In-class reports on contemporary women composers. April 14: Woman & the Blues Reading: Daphne Duval Harrison, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the '20s (NY: Pantheon, 1984), Intro, pp. 3-15; Chapter 3, 63-111. Eileen Southern, Readings in Black American Music, essay 30, pp. 244-52, "Ethel Waters." Listening: Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey Viewing: Wild Women Don't Have the Blues (ML 3521 W5 1989) April 16: Women and Jazz Reading: Linda Dahl, Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 22-25 Q Lil Hardin; 59-68 Q Mary Lou Williams; 97-102 Q Voice as Instrument; 136-142 Q The Jazz Singers (Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan); 144-147 Q Betty Carter. Sally Placksin, Women in Jazz, pp. 58-63 Q Lil Hardin; 95- 98 Q Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears; 127-148 Q The 40s and The International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Take a look at the great pictures in the center of the book. Viewing: Mary Lou Williams, Music on My Mind (ML 417 W54 M36 1990) International Sweethearts of Rhythm For your information: Pendle's Women and Music, Chapter 12 is titled "African-American Women in Blues and Jazz" Q a brief summary. April 21: Gospel, The Influence of Gospel Readings: Southern, Readings in Black American Music ; essay 36, pp. 261-67: "Mahalia Jackson." Southern, "Gospel and Its Traditions," The Music of Black Americans, pp. 461-74. (pg. #'s are for the 2nd edition, not 1st.) Listening: Mahalia Jackson, Songbirds of the South, Queen C. Anderson & Brewster Singers, Sweet Honey in the Rock Viewing: Gotta Make This Journey (ML 421 S94 G68 1983) Mahalia Jackson A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle. April 23: The Beginnings of Rock 'n' Roll, Rap. Readings: Venise Berry, "Feminine or Masculine: The Conflicting Nature of Female Images in Rap Music," forthcoming in Gender and Music, eds. Susan Cook and Judy Tsou, University of Illinois Press; xerox on reserve. Terri Sutton, "Fear of a Female Planet," City Pages, March 20, 1991; xerox. Listening: Varetta Dillard, Big Maybelle, Little Esther & The Robbins, Queen Latifah April 28: Music of Native American Women Readings: JudithVander, Songprints: The Musical Experience of Five Shoshone Women. Read the chapter assigned to your group. Marcia Herndon, "Biology and Culture: Music, Gender, Power, and Ambiguity, "in Music, Gender, and Culture. Listening: Assigned portions of the cassettes to accompany Songprints. April 30: Music of African Women Reading: Carol E. Robertson, "Power and Gender in the Musical Experiences of Women," (the section titled Singing for Power: Women and Spiritual Transcendence)" in Koskoff, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, p. 230-34 (stops at the bottom of p. 234). New book on Makeba Listening: Traditional Women's Music from Ghana, Zulu Songs, Mahotella Queens, Miriam Makeba May 5: Performance art and popular music Reading: McClary, "This is Not a Story My People Tell: Musical Time and Space According to Laurie Anderson," Feminine Endings, pp. 132-147. "A Bracing Breeze from Western Canada," and "New Fame For A Soaring Superstar;" two articles on reserve. Listening: Laurie Anderson, The Roches, k.d. lang Viewing: k.d. lang: Harvest of Seven Years (Cropped and Chronicled) May 7: Women's music Readings: The following 5 articles are xeroxes in a folder on reserve marked Women's Music Articles: Terri Sutton, "Whatever Happened To 'Women's Music'?" Utne Reader (Jan/Feb, 1992): pp. 30-34. Margot Mifflin, "The Fallacy of Feminism in Rock," Keyboard, 16 (April, 1990): p. 14. Jennifer Einhorn, "Women's Music, Where Did It Go?" Sojourner (Sept, 1991): pp. 34-35. Arlene Stein, "Androgyny Goes Pop: But is it Lesbian Music?" OUT/LOOK (Spring, 1991): pp. 26-33. "Ms. Conversation: Lesley Gore on k.d. lang" Ms. (July/August, 1990): 30-33. Karen E. Petersen, "An Investigation in Women-Identified Music in the United States," in Koskoff, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, p. 203-12. Carol E. Robertson, "Power and Gender in the Musical Experiences of Women," (the section titled The Rebirthing of Music in Communities of Women)" in Koskoff, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, p. 239-41.