Repertoire

I'm thinking of learning this.

Singing Femme

So, I've been doing some singing. I had worked out a song called "Woe" that has some clever lines and a couple of nice chord changes and therefore some nice melodic movement. I'm trying to find a feminine voice, and this song as I've arranged it is a nice frame to hang the best that I can currently do from. I next learned an á capella song from Judy Collins's singing -- "The Hills of Shiloh" which also has a cool quirky melody and with that beautiful voice to model after, I feel like I might eventually come to something that will please my ear.

Then a friend suggested a song that I am now trying to learn. You'd think it would be simple, it's a two minute country pop song from the early seventies as familiar as an old sweater: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton. This is no easy song to sing, and it is showing me my limitations in a bunch of different ways. The signature line in the chorus, where you sing "Jolene" four times in ascending pitch is the first killer. In the space of four words, you sing every note in the scale going up a full octave. The tendency is to build in intensity, and that just doesn't work. You need to keep the volume and force of your voice steady and let the pitch do the work, which is also a feminine strategy for speaking. This runs counter to my instincts (or maybe habits is a better word) and I end up straining on that high note in the last rep of "Jolene." It's right at the top of my range. I'm afraid to transpose the song another step down, because at the beginning of that line, I am afraid of sounding masculine, which I do anyway, but am working on. I don't need any help from the lower pitch.

Another problem with singing the song is that the beautiful lyrics Dolly wrote go by so quickly, you really have to be on your game with annunciation. I've ended up slowing down the tempo significantly to be able to get some expression and to try to give myself room to gentle down on the consonants. and that last "Jolene" in the coda that has the highest note in the song? Fuhgeddaboudit!

I am full of admiration for Dolly as a songwriter and singer and I am just on the verge of shelving this song for now because it's advanced stuff for a "beginner" like me. I sang this song maybe three times a few hours earlier today, and my throat is feeling the strain right now. That's a sign I'm doing something I shouldn't.

Still, that song is ultimately feminine to me and I hope someday to be able to do it justice!

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu -- PonPonPon

This video has been described as "almost too good" by someone whose judgement in such matters I trust implicitly. This is J-pop with a decidedly surrealist bent.



A little googling turned up Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's story -- evidently a model and fashion blogger from Tokyo who earlier this year put out her first ep and has gone viral with this video.

I think it's beautiful.

Gender is Only Partly Cultural

I run up against this a lot, and it bugs me: In researching my paper on Cherokee women, I found a work that is really comprehensive on a crucial period of the history that, in its introduction, asserts that gender is a cultural construct. This runs counter to both my beliefs and my personal experience. I also have read medical research and case histories that suggest that some aspects of gender -- identity for example -- are not of cultural origin.

I do not discount the cultural components of gender, but I do posit that there is more to gender than what is learned. Gender permeates us as physical as well as spiritual beings, from the molecular level to the most general physical aspects of our bodies, including brain structure.

We are genderized by culture, and culture can have effects on our physicalities, absolutely, but baldly stating that gender is a cultural construct only puts the cart before the horse -- we had gender and gender differences long before we had culture.

I feel a sense of mission about this. As much as it bugs me that certain branches of our academic world dismiss the importance of gender to our beings, I think that is the degree to which I feel passion to understand better what gender is and to communicate my understanding.

I don't know for sure how that passion will play into my current research. I have a lot of thinking to do and a lot more research.

Vlog for 11/27/11

Here's a little update about my life as of... ummm...

I mean to post in this blog more. I have not forgotten you! I'm really struggling with my relationship to Facebook right now, and I think I need to rely on it a little less for connections to people. I'm just going to start referring people here from there & doing most of my posting here for a while and see how I feel about that.