A Trick

Mike Scott

In the fifties, when the computer revolution was little more than the rustlings of an embryonic microchip, the husband worked and the wife managed the household. You can imagine the stir it created when my Uncle Bill left Western Auto…

Hip-Hop and Reggaetón; parallel grounds

Paola Pierce

It is both empowering and stirring to understand the roots of Hip-Hop, how it emerged as a music genre socially and politically, and how “…both women and men have participated in Hip Hop culture and rap music in ways that…

The Woman Composer Question

Leonoor Rinke de Wit

Genius has always been a heavily debated subject. What is it? Who has it? Why are some people more gifted than others? However, when it comes to the female genius, the past centuries have yielded but little answers. Partly, because…

Freedom: Gender and Technology in Music

Aaron Larson Tevis

In a 2004 interview, Annea Lockwood mentions this “black hole of no info” in relation to the world of composers that happen to be women, more specifically those that interact with technology. Silencing is the key force in this “black hole.” It is a form of cultural removal that can be felt by half of the population, yet, such a topic is still pervaded by a quietness ...

‘Female’ As A Sub-Genre

Jordan Popky

Drummer chick. Girl DJ. Female composer. What do all of these phrases have in common? They’re all effectively “other” women in the music industry. Women who take on roles in the music industry that are traditionally, or stereotypically, associated with…

Topography

Douglas W. Milliken

Sometimes—while hiking stretches of the Appalachian Trail, while driving cross-country, while forging new relationships—I imagine myself an explorer discovering inhabited lands. I imagine myself surrounded by plants I have never seen, mountains I have never climbed, rivers I have never…

The Tango Lesson

Tracy Picha

He is so deliciously close to me, I can smell the scent of his shampoo. Dark ends of his hair still clustered and damp. His skin is so invitingly smooth, it looks like he just shaved in a hot shower.…

My Debut

Robert Cataldo

When I was in my sixteenth year, a friend of my father’s, who worked for the state, came by my father’s store and had mentioned that the state psychiatric hospital in Waltham was looking for a piano player, a musician, to entertain their patients, one night a week, midweek. My father, of course, immediately thought of me. ...

Deaf Date

Paul Hostovsky

She was my sign language teacher. It wasn’t until the end of the semester that I’d finally learned enough signs to ask her out. And even then I wasn’t sure if I’d asked her out on a DATE or on…

Cans and Cant’s

Arkadiusz Prysak

The rising sun shines thin and white across a small kitchen in Opole, Poland. Eli Sigmund, a ten-year-old boy sits at the breakfast table, waiting. His mother anxiously paces back and forth, frantically packing suitcases for Eli’s father and his…