Thesis (M.Mus.Ther.)--New Zealand School of Music, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

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This work explores the everyday uses of rock music by women rock musicians, fans and DJs (amateurs), in a specific place (Portugal) and time (1990s-2014). Drawing on the work in the two main fields of music sociology and gender studies and its performative perspective to both gender and music (but also taking contributions from techno-feminist studies, science and technology studies, sociology of work, leisure and sports), this research takes a ‘music-in-action’ approach. This approach understands music as a social activity, as a network of connections between people, materials, discourses and activities. Rock music is best understood as a genre-in-action (not just as a semiotic text or reflection), as socio-material practice, in its collective, relational, performative, situated contexts of use - as rock musicking. As such, there are socio-material processes that constrain and enable women (as a minority group) doing and being in a masculinist rock music world. Taking a ‘mutual shaping’ approach to genre and gender, this research also takes into account how people use aesthetic materials in the processes of performative gendered identity making and relationship with others, as well as world building. The data consists of sixty in-depth interviews with Portuguese rockers (between 2012 and 2014), and supplementary field observations and follow-up interviews. The research found that girls and women’s musical opportunities are more restricted, but that they are also actively negotiated. Parental support and the presence of rock fathers in early years, as well as participation in male networks – whether or not a woman is romantically involved with ‘one of the boys’ – throughout the life course are pathways into rock musicking, as documented in other studies. Adding to the literature, this research highlights how not only in early years, but throughout the life course, rock musicking practices are dependent upon specific aesthetic (musical and visual) gender performances. From female masculinity to alternative femininities, rock music and its visual and material cultures are ‘active ingredients’ in doing and undoing gender. In Portugal, the absence of a strong riot grrrl movement and the lack of female/feminist networks, turns membership in male bands the norm. Consequently, either the “girl in the band’ or girl/female bands have to deal with their ‘novelty’ value. These rockers negotiate the labels of riot grrrl, feminist and grunge within a ‘girl power’ discourse, but mostly, struggling not to let their musical skills and value be obscured by their sex/ualization – developing high standards of musicianship, managing on-stage bodily disclosure, naming and praising their peers, aligning with an Anglo-Saxon rock female canon, but also othering female fans. In male bands, due to male skill ascription, women are segregated into traditional female musical roles, the singer, the bass player. On the other hand, women drummers get token value. At the expenses of instrument specialization, women undertake multi-instrumental pathways. Becoming musical agile selves and re-valuing (traditionally female) musical roles, playing conventions and body techniques. Women also appropriate mixers to spread their love for rock music. These women creatively expand rock music’s material culture, crafting it with clothes, acessories and even food. For rockers who are mothers, rock musicking becomes a technology of mothering. Taking Portuguese women rockers and their socio-musical practices, at both the everyday level and on the “spectacular” rock stage, this research adds to the international and growing body of work on gender and (rock) music across different disciplinary fields (sociology, popular music studies, feminist studies). It extends the traditional focus within popular music scholarship on Anglo-American rock culture, feminist mo(ve)ments, and subcultures, to place emphasis instead on an age group and place that has otherwise been overlooked.

Ausgangspunkt sind Video-Aufzeichnungen von drei Unterrichtsstunden im Fach Musik. Sie werden zunächst in einen musikdidaktischen Rahmen eingeordnet, der es erlaubt, eine Stunde primär der „Handlungsorientierung“ im Sinn der 1980er Jahre zuzuordnen, die zweite Stunde primär dem musikdidaktischen Modell eines „Aufbauenden Musikunterrichts“ und die dritte Stunde „offenen“ Unterrichtskonzeptionen. Der zweite Abschnitt fragt nach dem Verhältnis von Lernen und Lehren und mündet in die These, dass „natürliches“, informelles Lernen und das Lernen in der Institution Schule in einem unauflösbaren Spannungsverhältnis zueinander stehen. Diese These wird dann an einigen Teilaspekten der aufgezeichneten Schulstunden konkretisiert. Im abschließenden Abschnitt wird die These auf das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen den schulischen Leistungserwartungen und der individuellen Leistungsbereitschaft der Schüler bezogen. Der Beitrag mündet in einem Plädoyer für die Anerkennung und Förderung der grundlegenden Leistungsbereitschaft der Schüler sowie der Selbstwahrnehmung ihrer individuellen Leistungen und ihres individuellen Erfolgs im Sinn einer zunehmenden Leistungsbewusstheit. / The point of departure consists of video recordings of three music lessons. These are first of all localised within a music-didactic framework, allowing one lesson to be classified primarily along the lines of “action-oriented” processes in the 1980s sense of the term, the second to be classed primarily with the music-didactic model of “progressive music learning” and the third lesson with “open” teaching concepts. The second section is an enquiry into the relationship between teaching and learning, resulting in the thesis that there is an irresolvable tension between “natural” informal learning and learning within the school institution. In the following section this thesis is concretised along various partial aspects of the recorded lessons. The thesis is then applied in the final section to the tension between the school’s performance expectations and the pupils’ individual willingness to perform. The piece ends by arguing for the recognition and promotion of the pupils’ fundamental willingness to perform as well as of their self-awareness of their individual performance and individual success in the sense of an increasing awareness of performance.

Die Perspektive, die der Autor entwickelt, ist die der dialektischen Tätigkeitstheorie. Gemäß dieser Theorie ist Musik eine spezifische Art der Aneignung von Wirklichkeit. SchülerInnen sollten im Musikunterricht lernen, bewusst, selbstbestimmt und sozial zu handeln, wenn sie sich durch Musizieren Wirklichkeit aneignen. Wenn SchülerInnen im Unterricht Musik machen, müssen sie sich daher auch des kulturellen Kontextes bewusst sein, dem die Musik entstammt. Sie sollten auch selbstbestimmt handeln, d.h. es muss ihnen die Gelegenheit geboten werden, auf soziale Art und Weise innerhalb der Gruppe das Ergebnis mit zu bestimmen. Daher kritisiert der Autor alle drei der vorgeführten Musikstunden, weil sie den kulturellen Kontext und damit die Bedeutung und Funktion der Musik nicht berücksichtigen. Zwei der vorgeführten Stunden geben den Schüler/innen auch nicht die Möglichkeit selbstbestimmt zu handeln. Da alle drei Musikstunden „interkulturelle Themen“ behandeln, skizziert der Autor ein Handlungskonzept, so Musik zu machen, dass der kulturelle Kontext impliziert ist und die SchülerInnen selbstbestimmt handeln. Dies Konzept hat der Autor im Zusammenhang mit der Diskussion um interkulturelle Musikerziehung entwickelt. / The author sketches his specific perspective which is derived from a dialectic action-theory. Following this theory music is a genuine way to acquire reality. Music students have to learn to act conscious, self-determined, and social when they acquire reality by making music. When making music students have to be conscious of the cultural context the music comes from. They also have to act self-determined, i.e. they have to have the opportunity to determine the result of their music-making in a social way within the group. Thus the autor critizes all three lessons because they do not deal with the cultural context and therefore the meaning and function of the music. Two of the lessons also do not give the students the opportunity to act self-determined. As all three music lessons deal with „intercultural subjects“, the author sketches a concept of acting and making music in a way that includes cultural context and self-determination, and which he has developed within the context of multicultural music education.