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The growth of music technology degree provision in British Higher Education since the mid 1990s has been accompanied by a clear demographic bifurcation between music technology and traditional music degrees: the student make-up of British music technology degrees, in comparison to both traditional music degrees and the national average, is overwhelmingly male (more than 90%), from less advantaged social backgrounds, and (slightly) more ethnically diverse. At issue, then, is the emergence of a highly (male) gendered digital music scene.

What kinds of musical futures will take shape if such imbalances are allowed to persist? What steps might be taken to redress gender inequalities in educational, professional and academic settings as well as creative and curatorial practices in these fields going forward? How can we combat the tendency to focus exclusively on the ‘problem of women’ while ignoring the challenges posed by the styles of masculinity evident in these fields? Is the gendering of digital musics and sound art evident in certain aesthetic directions? Throughout, we adopt a constructive standpoint. As Sally-Jane Norman has commented: ‘If we want to account for the resilience of observed gendering and the reproduction of imbalanced musical literacies … then we need to come up with creative strategies for analysing, interpreting, and comparing current situations more deeply and more diversely’.

Participants:
Freida Abtan, Goldsmiths, University of London
Georgina Born, University of Oxford
Kyle Devine, City University London
Holly Ingleton, City University London
Cathy Lane, CRiSAP, University of the Arts, London
Sally-Jane Norman, University of Sussex
John Richards, De Montfort University
Laetitia Sonami, sound artist
Mark Taylor, University of Manchester
Marie Thompson, Newcastle University
Simon Waters, Queen’s University Belfast

Registration at http://www.nime2014.org/

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By: Matthew Knight
Last updated: Friday, 27 June 2014