Original messages:In a personal e-mail to Mattew I made mention of mixed marriages. I meant when only 1/2 of the couple appreciated Music a la Gould.James My OAPS was a pretty gifted child piano student and went pretty far into the classical repertoire with very fine teachers. But didn't keep it up as an adult. She's an enthusiastic but not particularly obsessive or dedicated listener, and didn't have much listening familiarity with GG when we married and merged our music collections. Last year I cranked up my beloved GG Mozart. She walked over to the stereo with the screwiest look of confusion and suspicion on her face and asked me very sincerely if the CD player was broken.My friend told me that some time ago,the list owner posed the question "Why aren't there women on the list?" In fact, there were women. The list owner just seemed to ignore them. He simply came up with this answer - "Women's brains aren't developed enough to understand Bach." !!! (and no, I am not inventing this story) I am sure that all femail F-Minors' blood will boil on reading this. (mine did!) but it made me think: Are there in fact any noticeable differences in the way men and women appreciate and react to music? Do they tend to have gender-related differences in their musical tastes? (You will note I am referring only to "differences"! I am not suggesting that the brains of either sex are inferior or superior. ) Another question: if you hear a recording by a pianist who you do not recognise, maybe one you have never heard before, can you tell immediately whether it is a man or a woman playing? If yes, how do you make the distinction? A glance at the F-minor archives seems to suggest that more men than women actually post to the list....there only seems to be a small number of female 'regulars' . I doubt however that this means that there a fewer female Gould-enthusiasts. Maybe women tend to be more reluctant to join in. But when I last posted to f-minor, I noted that the "response" email that came back automatically told me that my email had been delivered to 352 people. Obviously, most are lurkers. But what proportion of them are women? COme on everybody ....Can we hear from you? Kate PS (to James): yup, "Glenn Gould humself" was a typo. I am prone to these. At least this one I am happy to let stand! I have been known to make rather more embarrasing mistakes! |