Jordyn Writing and Research Fall 2019

As this class comes to a close, I think that I would give myself a B- overall. While I did engage with the class, my readings, and my assignments as best as I could, I did still miss some assignments and classes. I think while I enjoyed my final essay and wrote what I could, I do think that my long lack of experience with good academic writing held me back somewhat from creating something that I would call great work. Through iteration, I hopefully have made something clear, informative, and worthwhile, but I don’t know if I’ve made something I would classify as A-level work.

I recognize this is being kinda harsh on myself. Looking back at the tenants laid out at the start of this course, I recognize that I showed up willing and wanting to learn as much as I could, and I genuinely engaged with the readings and in class times because I really wanted to share my thoughts and hear the thoughts of others. I kept up with social media posts and replies, both for the assignment points and because I genuinely wanted to hear what my classmates had to say. I really enjoyed being in this class, actually. It’s the first academic writing experience I’ve had that hasn’t been like brutally pulling out my own teeth. It’s still been difficult for sure for a variety of reasons, not even counting the wide array of troubles I’ve had with my physical and mental heath. I’m glad I had this class though.

Intro: Abbreviated version of lit review to provide context for your research, the purpose, the research question, 2-3 pages

Methods: very straightforward no analysis, just here’s what I did for everything and here’s why I did it, 1-2 paragraphs at most

Results: what you found, 1-2 pages or so

Discussion: analyzing your results 7-8 pages

 -use subtitles, personalize the subtitle names, feel free to have more subsections

-not persuasive and doesn’t prove anything, has no argument, just shows what you found

-never open with a quote

-formal in tone, can use first person but do not address the audience

-don’t try to revise lit review into essay and plagiarize yourself, just take central ideas and make an analysis of what the lit review is saying

 Intro: (purpose and question)

 -What is the correlation between music preference and sexual orientation?

 -Main points: stereotypes and if they are backed by my research, the question of whether the history of certain genres has effected the people who still participate in listening to them,

 Lit Review: (only pull in the most salient parts to your point, don’t need to include all your sources)

 Methods:

Surprisingly, I’m going to be taking a somewhat cynical position to the reading. I know, I know, please try to contain the absolute shock that I would ever have something disparaging to say after a reading, which is a thing I have definitely not done to like half of the readings. In this one though, I do pretty much agree with what’s being said. It’s mostly the idea of how students get to this point of not actively looking for ways to use what they’ve previous learned that I’ve got depressing things to say about.

So transfer of information is posited as a major point of classes that teach writing, where the class is intended to teach basic skills that can then be brought into more disciplinary writing to create stronger rhetorical skills all across the board. These classes are hampered by students not considering the possibility of what they learn being applicable in their fields, or the process of learning that they picked up being applicable to learning to write in new ways. Students are way more focused on just getting good grades and moving on, instead of on developing a toolbox of applicable skills that they can bring with them into future classes and projects.

I suppose my reaction to this information is... cynical at best. But frankly my position to hearing that is “what else did you expect?” High school education, and even early college general education, is broadly considered, among the peers I had access to at least, to be way less about learning than it is about getting a good grade and moving on with your life. High school is full to the brim of standardized tests, essays that will be graded in chunks of thousands by overworked volunteers, digitally graded placement exams, etc. Most of the time, these things were the end-goal of our learning, because they had to be. They were too important for anything else to be able to be the focus. So when you have a system that rewards only very specific methods of success, swamps you with expectations and demands, and all but openly discourages critical thought in favor of rote rule-following, I am in no way shocked that a lot of the people left it with the continuing strategy of “get a good grade and get out” and not “hey I wonder if what I learned is applicable in multiple situations.”

The research paper didn’t really go into many deeper investigations into why students think the way they do outside of the immediate situation, which is fair because that is an incredible can of worms, and mostly focused on trying to create college-level solutions to this problem of students isolating information instead of looking for transferability. Honestly I think the biggest help to that is, unfortunately, a complete rework of the expectations of schooling as an institution that builds up these habits in people. If you want people to actually learn instead of just gunning for a good grade however they can and paying little attention to applicability, you should probably try creating a system that rewards critical thought and ranges of outside application, and preferably downplays the importance of end grades at all. So, you know, something kinda like this class.

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” -Stephen McCranie  

Is that quote cliche? Yeah. Is it true? Also yeah. Did I have to google this quote because I had no clue who said it? Yeah again. Failure is an inescapable part of the process of growing, whether it’s your failure or somebody else’s that you’re learning from. Drafting, which is absolutely essential to pretty much every kind of writing, is an extended process of failing in a particular direction until you flop onto either the goal you set out for or a more fitting goal you chose on the way there.

I feel like “failure” also gets a particularly bad connotation. Which... understandable. But it seems a bit overblown. Failure is a learning process, which would be way easier to believe and be comfortable with if every educational institution, job prospector, corporation, and tv show in the entire world wasn’t constantly screaming that even a single failure may ruin your life and sow salt in your fields and murder your firstborn. Failure is something we are conditioned to avoid like the plague, which makes sense to an extent, but it causes real harm to people when they do inevitably fail and instead of knowing how to bounce back and try again, they only are drowned in a feeling of worthlessness.

Interview:

What is your sexual orientation?

Do you engage with any communities based on sexual orientation?

Do you believe that music preference has any correlation to sexual orientation?

Do you think any specific kinds of music have connections to specific sexual orientations?

Do you think that certain kinds of music are stereotypically associated with any specific sexual orientations?

I plan to interview multiple people of various backgrounds and sexual orientations to try and get a variety of responses from a variety of people. Through these interviews I plan to get a more detailed response about both the “what” and the “why” of my questions.

Survey:

https://forms.gle/yWt2uJKX4uBg3tiHA

I chose these questions both to try and see what people’s personal association to certain types of music is, but also to gauge people’s idea of what sexualities certain music types are associated with. Through this, I want to see if the generalizations that people believe have any grounding in reality, and if so, why that is.

Observation:

I decided to make my “map” a recipe from an old cookbook, which made sense to me since my approach to writing is quite like following a recipe. While I change around some extra ingredients and steps depending on the type of writing, the general idea of sitting down, focusing, and writing is the same base to me no matter what the writing type is. It always requires flexible thought, planned purpose, creative problem-solving, conscious focus, attention to narrative, and last but not least, a dash of effort.

This differs from my first map by focusing less on what terms combine and more on the use and linkage of the terms. It also focuses more tightly on less terms than the first map, instead of focusing slightly on many points.

What Is the Correlation Between Sexual Orientation and Music Taste?

Is there a history of correlation between sexual orientation and certain genres of music? Is there even reason to believe that this correlation would exist? Do the spheres of music and sexual orientation overlap in any ways? These are the supporting questions to my main inquiry which I set out to answer through my secondary research. To this end, I researched the overlap of aspects of music and sexual orientation, the interwoven history of sexual orientation and the aesthetics of musicians, and the public impression of sexual orientation among music genres.

 Sexual Orientation, Presentation, and Music

 Presentation and aesthetic is regarded as an important aspect of belonging within groups, and the perception of minority sexuality groups is no different in this regard. Certain behaviors, appearances, names, voices, and more are frequently considered to belong to specific genders or sexualities, no matter how true that assumption may actually be. While these assumptions affect the groups that gravitate towards these aspects of personal presentation, they also affect which groups gravitate away. Young straight men seem to easily fall into this avoidant group, especially in situations where they believe they are being judged by male peers (Abramo, 2011). Abramo’s observations with high-school aged boys seemed to show an assumption among young straight men that having certain presentations in music, like using the head voice or singing softer lyrics, imply damaged or abnormal masculinity, and cause them to become defensive to avoid the ridicule of being assumed as not heteronormative.

 Conversely, many music artists intentionally evoke queer presentation as a method of performance. Artists like The Scissor Sisters utilize the colorful, purposefully overblown aesthetic of camp to express queer narratives and experiences through both their music and their bodies. Rappers like Jwl B reveal their entire body on stage, showing the real form of queer bodies, not the idealized and pornographic images of performers often edited or circulated beyond the control of the original person. Especially for non-straight performers, taking charge of their own bodies and aesthetic and pushing them away from heteronormative expectations is an important part of the declaration of the unique queer experience (Miller, 2011).

 Aesthetics that are attributed to minority or marginalized groups are important to music creators and consumers, both in terms of identifying groups that are close to your own identification and in terms of designating groups which heteronormative individuals are afraid to engage with for fear of their own sexuality being questioned. This divide by aesthetic may point to a correlation between members of certain sexualities and creators and music in certain genres.

 The History of Sexuality as an Aesthetic among Music Creators and Performers

 While individuals of minority sexualities and gender presentations have existed so long as to have explicit reference made to them in ancient myth and art, serious and anti-homophobic scholarly thought into the presence of queer artists in music and theatre was not even starting to be normalized until the late 1970s, aided by the influential article Britten and Grimes published in the Musical Times. Author Brett breaks down the opera Peter Grimes musically, stylistically, and in story, pointing out a queer narrative of rejection and fear of discovery stemming from both the main character and the author himself. Though the article is short and refrains from even mentioning homosexuality until nearly the last page, it still features a strong and unflinching depiction of the fear of discovery felt by gay creators and the rejection they experience upon coming out. This intentional lack of queer aesthetic by queer creators in theatre at the time still displayed a desire to be known, disguised beneath other factors but still desperate to be recognized by those who would understand the fear and shame that being queer carried in their society (Brett, 1977).

 The history of feminism’s rise goes hand-in-hand with this rise of queer theory and the fight for acceptance. While Brett penned one of the first scholarly articles to take non-straight identity seriously in music theory and theatre, queer and feminist creators had already long begun the fight to be seen and not dismissed in music culture, striking out boldly. The Stonewall Riots sparked an emergence into the public conscious of women led and lesbian-feminist bands, record labels, and production companies, and disco was born as the voice of gay liberation, specifically for and by gay people of color (Brett, Wood, and Hubbs, 2012). The 1980s saw a counter-period of silencing of gay musicians and aesthetic, which then re-emerged with a vengeance with the rise of urgent anti-AIDS activism, and saw kick-back in the form of forcible outings of musicians in the 1990s (Brett, Wood, and Hubbs, 2012). Into the modern day queer and feminine aesthetic is degraded in popular media, even as it advocates true acceptance beyond the music industry, but is once more beginning to pick up steam with the modern push for equality.

 The history of sexual orientation as a presentation and aesthetic in music is one of rebellion and advocacy. When who you are is seen as lesser, it is easy to gravitate towards spaces which display people like you and acceptance for your identity. It is possible that the history of queer acceptance and rebellion among certain genres could carry into the modern day, leading to genres with more queer representation among their musicians and listeners.

 Sexual Orientation Among Listeners and the Public

 There is certainly a precedence for the idea that certain individuals of certain beliefs or orientations would be drawn to certain music, for sound, artist, or aesthetic. Marketing tactics targeted at music-listening audiences have found it highly effective to hone in on fans of specific artists for political, social, and commercial messages (Waldrip, 2017). With artists holding such influential positions, the identity and sexual orientation of artists could quite easily influence both their audience and the spaces which their audience inhabits, and having an artist vocally identify with a minority sexuality could normalize the existence of that orientation among their audience.

The lens of sexual orientation and presentation itself, especially in regards to music, also changes drastically based on the space it is present in, even among queer spaces. Queer bar spaces, for example, are led by a sense of erotic sexuality, and their queer aesthetic is thus far more sexualized compared to queer choral music spaces (Miyake, 2013). Queer music spaces being eroticized, even in research, is not very surprising when the fight for rights for all sexualities is one based around the spectrum of expressing sexual attraction. However, queer musical aesthetic extends outside of specifically gay and lesbian musical spaces as well, creating communities that become forces of activism and reminders of community support for queer individuals (Miyake, 2013).

 As well as looking at groups of people of certain sexualities to try and discern leanings towards certain genres, it’s possible to look at fans of certain genres and try to discern leanings towards certain sexualities. It’s even possible for the fans themselves to be the ones doing this. Discussion among pop music fans especially leans into queer aesthetic and queer-friendly spaces, generating in-jokes and assumptions that participating members are not heterosexual (r/popheads, 2019). Even participating heterosexual individuals express a fear of being considered more homosexual or less masculine by admitting to participating in the genre. Discussion like this in these spaces also opens up the idea that, instead of actually having a majority population of a certain sexual orientation, individuals are instead scared to speak up if they do not fit the stereotype of the community for fear of being othered and outcast (r/popheads, 2019).

 Music, Sexual Orientation, and Correlation

 The general consensus of my sources leads towards the idea that music has been highly important to the history of expression and community among queer individuals. Queer individuals who create music have done so from inside the closet, and also by creating their own genres through explicit use of non-heteronormative practices and aesthetics. Genres heavily influenced by queer individuals and aesthetic could still contain higher representation of minority sexualities However, it is just as possible that such histories have not truly shaped the medium to this day, but only created a stereotype of the medium in the eyes of a heteronormative-aligned public. Whether queer spaces in music have persisted to this day or not, their history is important not just to the queer community, but to the whole of music and theatre.

 Bibliography

 Brett, P. (1977). “Britten and Grimes.” The Musical Times, 118(1618), 995-1000. doi: 10.2307/959289

 Brett, P., Wood, E., & Hubbs, N.  (2012, July 10). “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer music.” Grove Music Online. Retrieved 29 Sep. 2019, from https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.du.idm.oclc.org/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002224712.

 Joseph Michael Abramo (2011). “Queering informal pedagogy: sexuality and popular music in school.” Music Education Research, 13:4, 465-477, DOI:10.1080/14613808.2011.632084

 Miyake, E. (2013, March 3). Understanding Music and Sexuality through Ethnography: Dialogues between Queer Studies and Music. Transposition, (3). doi: 10.4000/transposition.150

 r/popheads (2019, August 1) Is there a correlation between sexual orientation and music taste?. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/ckmit8/is_there_a_correlation_between_sexual_orientation/.

 Waldrip, R. (2017, November 30). We Are What We Listen To: How Music Makes Our Identity. Retrieved from https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/data-management/we-are-what-we-listen-to-how-music-makes-our-identity/.

I’ve established a pretty good history with my lit review. What I really need to do now is go out and actually figure out the current state of my question. Essentially I’ve answered “have music and sexuality ever been correlated” and the answer is “yes absolutely,” but now I need to go about answering “how do music taste and sexuality currently correlate?” I’ve figured out that queer creators have influenced music explicitly through their queer perspectives and goals and aesthetics influenced by those perspectives and goals, and that this isn’t confined to a single genre or instance. I’ve figured out that music has been a source of power for the disenfranchised and othered, and music spaces have been both places of support and rebellion. Now what I’m really figuring out with my primary research is whether that still holds true with music genres, and if there are specific groups finding power from specific genres, and why that is.

·       What is your overall goal with the lit review? How are you using the existing body of research to make connections?

Through this literature review, I’m attempting to build up reasoning to defend a possible correlation between sexuality and music preference that goes beyond surface-level stereotyping and instead seeks to explain why such a link could exist. I look at the history of queer music and the historical aesthetics of queer music creators, the impact of queer music on queer history, the public perception of non-heteronormative individuals in the music and arts industry, and the pubic perception of certain genres of music in relation to their “queerness.” All of this is intended to build a picture linking music itself to sexuality itself, drawing possible connections through the shared portions of their histories all the way up to their present day perceptions.

·       What is your intended purpose beyond the assignment expectations? What do you hope your audience will understand after reading your lit review?

I intend to build a picture of the historical overlap of queer individuals and aesthetic with music creation, even beyond popular music. With and through this I hope for my reader to understand that what I am attempting to discover is not a stereotype or a catchy headline, but instead a look into the connection of music, a method of powerful personal expression, to sexuality, a powerful aspect of the self. I don’t seek to trivialize or flatten the experience of any minority sexualities, but instead I want to explore the “what” and “why” behind any connections found between a common method of expression and an aspect of the self often pressured and silenced by the world.

·       Based on your own self-analysis as well as your peers, what do you need to do in revision? Be specific.

Methods:

Our research was collected outside of Sturm Hall, on the Driscoll Green, and in the Anderson Academic Commons. We observed 75 people using their laptops over 40 minutes in these places and noted the system that they used, as well as asking 23 people to fill out a Google survey about their laptop preferences. We also interviewed Talie Hereford, a student using a laptop in the library, to get some more in-depth perspective about why people choose one laptop type over the other.

Results:

Survey Results:

Mac laptops are the most popular in use and preference, at ~65% usage and ~60% preference. Macs were most used by psychology, anthropology, international studies, and accounting majors, while PCs were used in relatively equal amounts among the surveyed majors. Among surveyed majors, the most common are psychology and anthropology, and most surveyed majors fell among the arts and humanities.

The most common use of Mac laptops was for schoolwork, with 12 responses, the second most common use being entertainment at 6 responses. The most commonly stated benefits of the Mac are its simplicity, its device compatibility, and the ability to use iMessage through it.

The most common use of PC laptops was for schoolwork as well, with 7 responses, the second most common also being entertainment at 3 responses. The most commonly stated benefit of the PC is touch-screen capability.

Observation Results:

Among the 75 observed laptop users, 44 people were using Mac laptops and 31 were using PC laptops. Mac laptops were more common among users in all locations.

Interview Results:

We interviewed Talie Hereford, a student laptop user, about the reasons why she used the laptop she used. She used a Mac laptop, and told us that she had always used a Mac. She said that her friends had also always used Macs, and her old school had used them exclusively as well. She also has an Apple phone. While she did not have a strong opinion either way, she said that she did not see a reason to change from her use of Mac laptops, but did not necessarily have any problem with PC laptops.

Discussion:

Through observing and studying DU students, we discovered that a majority of students on DU campus seem to use and prefer Mac laptops over PC laptops. However, there did not seem to be very strong opinions about this subject. Within our findings, many cited benefits of Mac laptops were also given about PC laptops, such as large screens and screenshot capabilities. There were even cases where the preferences question was not filled out, seemingly due to a lack of preference between the two kinds of laptop. Only one person for each kind of laptop gave survey answers that suggested a strong preference against the other kind of laptop. The laptops are also generally used for the same things, the one departure from this being the respondents reporting usage of only Macs for graphic design. Even in our interview, the use of the chosen laptop was mostly from habit, and not out of strong feelings for or against either laptop type.

Jordyn’s Review of Ali

What is the writer’s main claim about the current research? Summarize it in two-three sentences:

The main claim is that regular exercise and healthy diet are directly linked to improved happiness and mental health.

·       How does the writer break the research into themes? Be specific.

The themes are healthy diet and exercise, and their individual effects on mental health.

·       How does the writer synthesize his/her sources? Do you understand the connections between sources? If so, how? If not, explain this to the writer.

Sources are synthesized by their support of healthy diet or of exercise, and are clear in connection

·       Is the writer’s language and tone appropriate for an academic audience? Is there too much casual language? Is the tone too instructional or informational, rather than analytical? Is there too much summary of sources? If so, point this out for the writer.

The language and tone are appropriate for an academic audience, and the summaries all point back to main claim.

·       Does the writer use evidence to support his/her claims? Are there in-text citations (parenthetical citations)?

·       Does the writer use supportive sources (i.e. using direct quotations)? What are some of them—point them out. Do you understand how and why they were used? Are they incorporated smoothly into the paper? Tell the writer if not, and tell him/her why it doesn’t work.

Ample evidence is used through direct quotations, but not through parenthetical citations, which are not present.

·       Where do you feel the writer could develop his/her claim more fully? Where do you feel the writer limits his/her synthesis?

The claim is specific and developed, and all points made and research quoted relate back to the main claim.

·       Does the writer use the appropriate style (MLA or APA) through the paper? This includes in-text citations, work cited/reference page as well as correct use of a heading, punctuation and spacing.

Yes the styling is appropriate for APA and has a work cited page.  

·       Does the writer have any misspelled or misplaced words? Any awkward phrasing? If so, where, point them out. 

Phrasing around direct quotations is awkward, not flowing with sentences but instead seeming to end a sentence and then move into a quotation.

·       What did you learn as a reader of this paper?

I learned about the direct link between any exercise, even 10 mins per week, and happiness, as well as the integral importance of a good diet to a positive life experience.

·       What are the two most important revision suggestions for this writer to address before the next draft? 

Develop more of a balance between direct quotation and in-text citation, and work to improve phrasing flow around direct quotations.

   Alex’s Review of Jordyn

What is the writer’s main claim about the current research? Summarize it in two-three sentences:

The main claim is that there is a connection between someone’s sexuality and the traits that they incorporate into their music. This all comes from the fact that presentation in music is usually personal and reflective of the person.    

·       How does the writer break the research into themes? Be specific.

This research is broken into four sections or themes of focus, Sexuality, Presentation, and Music, The History of Sexuality Aesthetic of Music Creators and Performers, Sexuality Among Listeners and the Public, and Music, Sexuality, and Correlation.

·       How does the writer synthesize his/her sources? Do you understand the connections between sources? If so, how? If not, explain this to the writer.

The writer synthesizes by concretely connecting the sources in a coherent manner making it very understandable, some of the wording makes it a little confusing but overall a strong delivery.  

·       Is the writer’s language and tone appropriate for an academic audience? Is there too much casual language? Is the tone too instructional or informational, rather than analytical? Is there too much summary of sources? If so, point this out for the writer.

The writer’s tone throughout the paper is consistent and professional as this is a very informative paper. For me the conclusion in the first two sections is a little much as it is supposed to be straight to the point and more evidence focused but overall she did a good job.  

·       Does the writer use evidence to support his/her claims? Are there in-text citations (parenthetical citations)?

Yes and there are in-text citations.

·       Does the writer use supportive sources (i.e. using direct quotations)? What are some of them—point them out. Do you understand how and why they were used? Are they incorporated smoothly into the paper? Tell the writer if not, and tell him/her why it doesn’t work.

Yes there are supportive sources. (Highlighted). They are mostly paraphrased so yes they are included well.

·       Where do you feel the writer could develop his/her claim more fully? Where do you feel the writer limits his/her synthesis?

If anything I think that it is a little overdeveloped and could be cut down a little.

·       Does the writer use the appropriate style (MLA or APA) through the paper? This includes in-text citations, work cited/reference page as well as correct use of a heading, punctuation and spacing.

Yes the styling is appropriate for APA and has a work cited page.  

·       Does the writer have any misspelled or misplaced words? Any awkward phrasing? If so, where, point them out. 

I am not the best at picking out awkward phrasing, but overall it seemed pretty good to me. Didn’t notice any spelling mistakes either.

·       What did you learn as a reader of this paper?

I learned that there is a lot more to music and identity than I originally thought and I would not have made some of the connections that this paper does.

·       Be on the lookout for the following: the writer should not be using primary research. The writer should not be making claims that don’t stem directly from the existing body of research. The writer should not be simply stating things like “here’s source 1, here’s source 2, here’s source 3…” There needs to be analysis and synthesis.

·       What are the two most important revision suggestions for this writer to address before the next draft? 

What Is the Correlation Between Sexuality and Music Taste?

Sexuality, Presentation, and Music

Presentation and aesthetic is regarded as an important aspect of belonging within groups, and the perception of sexuality groups is no different in this regard. Certain behaviors, appearances, names, voices, and more are frequently considered to belong to specific genders or sexualities, no matter how true that assumption may actually be. While these assumptions may affect the groups that gravitate towards these aspects of personal presentation, they definitely affect which groups gravitate away. Young, straight men seem to easily fall into this avoidant group, especially in situations where they believe they are being judged by male peers (Abramo, 2011). Abramo’s observations with high-school aged boys seemed to show an assumption among young straight men that having certain presentations in music, like using the head voice or singing softer lyrics, imply damaged or abnormal masculinity, and cause them to become defensive to avoid the ridicule of being assumed as not heteronormative.

On the opposite end of aesthetic, many music artists intentionally evoke queer presentation as a method of performance, whether they are queer or not. Artists like The Scissor Sisters utilize the colorful, purposefully overblown aesthetic of camp to express queer narratives and experiences through both their music and their bodies. Rappers like Jwl B reveal their entire body on stage, and through doing so show the real form of queer bodies, not the idealized and pornographic images of performers often edited or circulated beyond the control of the original person. Especially for non-straight performers, taking charge of their own bodies and aesthetic and pushing them away from heteronormative expectations is an important part of the declaration of the unique queer experience (Miller, 2011).

Aesthetics that are attributed to minority or marginalized groups are important to music creators and consumers, both in terms of identifying groups that are close to your own identification and in terms of designating groups which heteronormative individuals are afraid to engage with for fear of their own sexuality being questioned. This divide by aesthetic may point to a correlation between members of certain sexualities and creators and music in certain genres.

 The History of Sexuality Aesthetic of Music Creators and Performers

While individuals of minority sexualities and gender presentations have existed so long as to have explicit reference made to them in ancient myth and art, serious and anti-homophobic scholarly thought into the presence of queer artists in music and theatre was not even starting to be normalized until the late 1970s, aided by the flagship article Britten and Grimes published in the Musical Times. Author Brett breaks down the opera Peter Grimes musically, stylistically, and in story, pointing out a queer narrative of rejection and fear of discovery stemming from both the main character and the author himself. Though the article is short and refrains from even mentioning homosexuality until nearly the last page, it still features a strong and unflinching depiction of the fear of discovery felt by gay creators and the rejection they experience upon coming out. The aesthetic of queer creators in the time of the second World War was a quiet language, disguised beneath other factors but still desperate to be recognized by those who would understand the fear and shame that being gay carried in their society (Brett, 1977).

The history of feminism’s rise goes hand-in-hand with the rise of queer theory and the fight for acceptance. While Brett penned one of the first scholarly articles to take non-straight identity seriously in music theory, queer and feminist creators had already long begun the fight to be seen and not dismissed in music, striking out boldly. The Stonewall Riots sparked an emergence into the public conscious of women led and lesbian-feminist bands, record labels, and production companies, and disco was born as the voice of gay liberation, especially for gay people of color (Brett, Wood, and Hubbs, 2012). The 1980s saw a period of silencing of gay musicians and aesthetic, which then re-emerged with a vengeance with the rise of urgent anti-AIDS activism, and saw kick-back in the form of forcible outings of musicians in the 1990s (Brett, Wood, and Hubbs, 2012). Even into the modern day, queer and feminine aesthetic is degraded in popular media, even as it advocates true acceptance beyond the music industry.

The history of sexuality presentation and aesthetic in music is one of rebellion and advocacy. When who you are is seen as lesser, it is easy to gravitate towards spaces which display people like you and acceptance for your identity. It is possible that the history of queer acceptance and rebellion among certain genres could carry into the modern day, leading to genres with more queer representation among their musicians and listeners.

 Sexuality Among Listeners and the Public

There is certainly a precedence for the idea that certain individuals would be drawn to certain music, for sound and artist and aesthetic. Marketing tactics targeted at music-listening audiences have found it highly effective to hone in on fans of specific artists for political, social, and commercial messages (Waldrip, 2017). With artists holding such influential positions, the identity and sexuality of artists could quite easily influence both their audience and the spaces which their audience inhabits, and having an artist vocally identify with a minority sexuality could certainly normalize the existence of that sexuality among their audience.

The lens of sexuality and presentation itself, especially in regards to music, also changes drastically based on the space it is present in, even among queer spaces. Queer bar spaces, for example, are led by a sense of erotic sexuality, and their queer aesthetic is thus far more sexualized compared to queer choral music spaces (Miyake, 2013). Queer music spaces being eroticized, even in research, is not very surprising when the fight for rights for all sexualities is one based around the spectrum of expressing sexual attraction. However, queer musical aesthetic extends outside of specifically gay and lesbian musical spaces as well, creating communities that become forces of activism and reminders of community support for queer individuals (Miyake, 2013).

As well as looking at groups of people of certain sexualities to try and discern leanings towards certain genres, it’s possible to look at fans of certain genres and try to discern leanings towards certain sexualities. It’s even possible for the fans themselves to be the ones doing this. Discussion among pop music fans especially leans into queer aesthetic and queer-friendly spaces, generating in-jokes and assumptions that participating members are not heterosexual (r/popheads, 2019). Even participating heterosexual individuals express a fear of being considered more homosexual or less masculine by admitting to participating in the genre. Discussion like this in these spaces also opens up the idea that, instead of actually having a majority population of a certain sexuality, individuals are instead scared to speak up if they do not fit the stereotype of the community for fear of being othered and outcast (r/popheads, 2019).

 Music, Sexuality, and Correlation

The general consensus of my sources seems to lead towards the idea that music has been important to the history of expression of queer individuals, and such individuals who create music have done so both from inside the closet in many genres and by creating their own genres through explicit use of non-heteronormative practices and aesthetics. The idea that genres heavily influenced by queer individuals and aesthetic could still contain higher representation of minority sexualities is highly worth considering, but so is the idea that such histories have not truly shaped the medium, but only a stereotype of the medium in the eyes of a heteronormative-aligned public. What remains absolutely inarguable is this; queer and feminist music history is integral to the shaping of our modern day music culture, not just in the pop music scene.

Bibliography-

Brett, P. (1977). “Britten and Grimes.” The Musical Times, 118(1618), 995-1000. doi: 10.2307/959289

Brett, P., Wood, E., & Hubbs, N.  (2012, July 10). “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer music.” Grove Music Online. Retrieved 29 Sep. 2019, from https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.du.idm.oclc.org/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002224712.

Joseph Michael Abramo (2011). “Queering informal pedagogy: sexuality and popular music in school.” Music Education Research, 13:4, 465-477, DOI:10.1080/14613808.2011.632084

Miyake, E. (2013, March 3). Understanding Music and Sexuality through Ethnography: Dialogues between Queer Studies and Music. Transposition, (3). doi: 10.4000/transposition.150

r/popheads (2019, August 1) Is there a correlation between sexual orientation and music taste?. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/ckmit8/is_there_a_correlation_between_sexual_orientation/.

Waldrip, R. (2017, November 30). We Are What We Listen To: How Music Makes Our Identity. Retrieved from https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/data-management/we-are-what-we-listen-to-how-music-makes-our-identity/.

Reflection is the best part of learning and the worst part of assignments because it makes you go beyond stated knowledge and instead makes you think about why something is the way it is. It’s the process of digging deeper into an already answered question to try to figure out why that answer is correct, instead of just leaving it as good enough. Reflection is answering “why” after you’ve found the “what.”

As frustrating as I can find it in certain circumstances that Yancey perfectly encapsulates, reflection when well implemented is important for problem solving and understanding that goes past wrote memorization. It’s not really the fault of the concept that most of my experience with reflection in education has been “try to write five pages of what you think the teacher wanted you to get out of the reading.” The more I think about it, I’m pretty sure that isn’t even reflection anyways. It never truly gets down to the “why” of what was asked, it’s just answering another “what” about the same subject. Reflection should really be more of a processing of working through both the answer you got and the process you took to get there and deconstructing it to try to find value past just answering something. I don’t think it’s something you can standardize, because I think ideally everybody would get an at least slightly different answer. Reflection should be opinionated, and it should recognize and embrace that. As a stringent disbeliever in objectivism, I think the ability to create truth through deeper consideration is an ability both available to everybody and unique in its process and outcomes.

Miyake, E. (2013, March 3). Understanding Music and Sexuality through Ethnography: Dialogues between Queer Studies and Music. Transposition, (3). doi: 10.4000/transposition.150

This article is written by an ethnographer who immersed herself in queer music for the purposes of understanding the link between music and sexuality beyond the erotic or musicological senses that are most widely studied. Through observations in gay and lesbian clubs and through joining a gay and lesbian choir, she analyzes the crossroads of music and sexuality through a non-erotic lens as best as possible.

This article will be incredibly helpful because it is research following exactly what I want to do: observe any link between sexuality and music not from an erotic or creator-oriented perspective, but from the perspective of how interest relates to personal expression.

r/popheads (2019, August 1) Is there a correlation between sexual orientation and music taste?. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/ckmit8/is_there_a_correlation_between_sexual_orientation/.

This page features discussion among pop music listeners about the sexuality of the userbase and why it may lean away from heteronormativity. Users seem split between the idea that pop music listeners are not actually mostly gay, but that those who are vocal are more gay because they feel less of a need to abide by masculine standards, and the idea that pop music listeners are more gay because pop music tends to be empowering in message and sung with an attraction towards men. It was also pointed out that even in a conversation about diverse orientation, it inevitably became dominated by male perspective.

Discussion like this among listeners of certain genres helps to provide a direct look into both the culture of a genre and the orientations of those within certain genre spaces. However, as pointed out in the discussion itself, culture, age, and location have a lot of impact upon willingness to publicly identify with both genre and orientation.

Waldrip, R. (2017, November 30). We Are What We Listen To: How Music Makes Our Identity. Retrieved from https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/data-management/we-are-what-we-listen-to-how-music-makes-our-identity/.

This is an article aimed at marketers about the salience of music and its relation to both identity and culture, specifically from the lens of allowing marketers to hone in on an audience instead of making broad assumptions. It says that individual like of artists is much more salient than individual appreciation of genres, and those individual artists are far more able to push a message to their audience than a full genre is.

While focused on marketing, this is still good to keep in mind when trying to poll information from communities. It also provides a hypothesis of how music taste changes based on age, and how music taste and individual artist taste can be not as closely linked as could be expected.

Miller, J. (2011). Spectacle and Sexuality: Music, Clothes and Queer Bodies. In Fashion and Music (pp. 131–154). Oxford: Berg. Retrieved October 07 2019, from http://dx.doi.org.du.idm.oclc.org/10.2752/9781472504418/Miller0009

Miller argues that identity, the body, and music are all interlinked, especially in a society that expects and enforces certain representation or lack thereof. Queer performers, and performers who utilize “queer aesthetic,” break these expectations on purpose because the expectations put on bodies and performance were not crafted with anything but heteronormativity in mind.

I somewhat agree with the Framework for Success in Post-Secondary Writing. It makes great points about teaching writing concepts in various ways and contexts, and I agreed with pretty much all of the writing, reading, and critical analysis experiences section. I also cannot overstate how happy I was to read “Standardized writing curricula or assessment instruments that emphasize formulaic writing for nonauthentic audiences will not reinforce the habits of mind and the experiences necessary for success as students encounter the writing demands of postsecondary education.” Oh my god I wish I could go back in time, print that section out a hundred times, and just wallpaper my AP Literature teacher’s room with it. It’s so unbelievably satisfying to see that in an article approved by hundreds of educators.

The part of the framework that I don’t fully agree with is the Habits of Mind. These are described as traits that are absolutely essential to being a successful writer in college. Most of them I agree with, and a couple I can understand, but a few seem simply out of place to me. Those that confuse me are Curiosity, Engagement, and Persistence. Curiosity is defined in the framework as a desire to know more about the world. Engagement is defined as a sense of investment and involvement in learning. Persistence is defined as the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.

These confuse me because, frankly, they are not essential. Something like Flexibility is absolutely essential to college writing and college in general, because if you try to last in college at all without the ability to flexibly adapt your time, your limits, and the standards you hold yourself to, you will not make it. Metacognition is absolutely essential to college writing and college in general because without it you are kneecapping your ability to grow and reflect and learn from your past experiences and the past experiences of those around you.

But I have absolutely written a ten page paper on something I was not curious about, was not engaged with, and had to physically force myself to make sporadically over the course of two weeks, and I still got a B. Heck, I haven’t been able to sustain interest in and invested thought about what I’m typing right now. There was a half hour break between nearly every sentence of this paragraph up to this point. I am wildly easy to distract and people keep texting me about things.

It’s well within the realm of possibility to be a variably above average student and write papers and research you do not give one single solitary shit about. Is it way harder without those three things? Absolutely. No doubt. But are they essential to success in college and college writing, even to genuine writing? No. Are they the dream of what educators would love to see in their students? Probably?

I have to address that I am biased about this though. I am not, uh, neurotypical, and I have never held a particular fondness for the institution of education because of the rigid cookie-cutter mold it expects you to be able to fit. The most important thing that I ever learned from all levels of schooling, including college so far, was not any of the rote memorization; the most important thing I learned was how to let go of the rigid methods expected of me and to find a way to succeed either despite or in spite of those expectations. I could never be the enthusiastic teacher’s pet who did everything the exact correct way and knew all the answers and could write without mixing up my words and letters and didn’t mix up my times tables and who never accidentally went on a mental tangent about how the fuck bird feathers were angled and layered to produce lift and totally missed like thirty minutes of class. As curious of a person as I could be, I was not curious about what my dense, dry, small-type textbooks had in them. As eager as I could be, I was not engaged with a classroom process that was the bane of my already nonexistent ability to sit still and focus. As dogged and determined as I could be, I was never able to persistently long-term attend to literally anything in my life, because that’s just not how my brain works. I couldn’t achieve those traits in a traditional classroom context. But I made it anyways. I think that a good, supportive classroom will encourage those things in students, but even then I think you can be a perfectly good student who adds to the conversation and does good work while still missing one or more of those three traits in your writing.

From both my past experiences and the experience of reading the Framework and writing this response, I would construct a hierarchy of the eight Habits of Mind like this:

Flexibility

Openness

Creativity

Metacognition

Responsibility

Persistence

Curiosity

Engagement

Both in this class and in life generally, Flexibility, Openness and Creativity are what I value most. Creating new work that adds unique value to a classroom or essay requires those traits, and attempts at synthesizing various sources of information into a research project suffer irreparably without them. Metacognition and Responsibility are required to build on previous work, mistakes, and understandings and reach new and more interesting conclusions. The intro posts in this class, and many of the subsequent homework assignments, have required all of these previously mentioned traits in building a personal understanding of writing, and even in working out a topic to research to begin with. While all of these things could certainly be enriched in some aspects by the last three traits, they don’t have to be there.

Brett, P. (1977). “Britten and Grimes.” The Musical Times, 118(1618), 995-1000. doi: 10.2307/959289

This article was one of, if not the first published scholarly article to take seriously and antihomophobically the idea of sexual orientation influencing musical expression and creation, and in doing so laid the groundwork for scholarly articles around queer interpretation. It deconstructs the character Peter Grimes from the opera of the same name, using information from the performed story, the author’s life, and how the music itself is composed, and in laying out these points makes a compelling argument for the queer nature of both the character and the author, Benjamin Bitten.

I think this will be useful to my research by how it examines queer coding in both music and stories. It draws queer meaning from the music and story of the play in detail, and is useful to understanding both how music is interwoven to the expression of sexuality and how readings based on sexuality can be taken out of music.

Brett, P., Wood, E., & Hubbs, N.  (2012, July 10). “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer music.” Grove Music Online. Retrieved 29 Sep. 2019, from https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.du.idm.oclc.org/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002224712.

This article was a history of both queer people and queer coding, or the distinct lack of those, in certain decades and within certain music genres. It also dealt with the topics of intersectionality and privilege over and among the members of the LGBTQ+ community in those times. It describes multiple influential eras in queer music and performers, delineating them as “pre-WW2,” “post-WW2,” “post-Stonewall,” and “post-HIV,” and discusses the major events and more general movements in those times and how they influenced or were influenced by music and performance.

Learning about the history of queer presence in music and theatre, and how it was or explicitly wasn’t acknowledged, is important to trying to discover a link between sexual orientation and music preference. The history of certain genres as linked to the representation or lack thereof for minority sexualities is important to consider when looking at the possible presence of interest by those same minorities into the present.

Joseph Michael Abramo (2011). “Queering informal pedagogy: sexuality and popular music in school.” Music Education Research, 13:4, 465-477, DOI:10.1080/14613808.2011.632084

This article outlines the behaviors of two high-school aged participants in a study where they are formed into band groups of either single gender or mixed gender participants. By and through doing so, it talks about the role music creation and consumption plays in performative gender and sexuality. From the perspective of an educator looking for ways to better educate, it provides a very interesting look into the behaviors and reasoning that the participants ascribe to certain kinds of music and to the people who participate in them.