This film starts out badly and then gets worse and then there comes a point where it’s so bad that it starts to get good again. I accept that I’m not their target audience and that I’m maybe too jaded and cynical and elderly for this film. I did laugh but for the wrong reasons.

Estelle Jorgensen isn’t a lady who minces her words. She tells it like it is (or how she sees it) and if you’re a music teacher or traininng to be a music teacher then the intorduction may well put you back up a little. Sometimes I think she writes in a provoking manner just to check if we’re all paying attention. This book is essential reading to anyone interested in the sociology of music and the rationale behind music education in the west.

I know this is meant to be a very well respected piece but I can only get so far with it before I just become so irritated by the repetitiveness that I have to stop.

I’ve listened to it all now – to be honest, it “did my head in” quite a bit. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to listen to it again. Undoubtably it’s an artistic musical work of great merit but I think the components that make up the whole part are just too aggitating for me to enjoy the music. It’s worth a listen but for the most part I didn’t enjoy listening to it.

I’ve never really gotten into feminist theory and even in the field of music I have made a conscious effort to avoid my writing and research straying into this particular field. This is odd because as a performing and composing musician I’m all too aware of the huge gender inequalities within music and musicology. It’s not that I’m not interested in feminism within music but more that I’m perhaps a little afraid of compromising my reputation and status as a musician within the musical circles and societies I operate in by raising questions about whether I am treated differently, judged differently, viewed differently by my predominantly male contemporaries. I do not want to risk raising the questions that might highlight the “elephant in the room” (or elephant on the stage) that I use my femininity to my advantage on the stage and in my creative practice and yet, perhaps, the price I pay for that is that I do suffer prejudice, resentment and downright misogany by men and sometimes women who do not like to see a female performer who does not conform to the traditional “behaviours” such as modesty, passiveness, shyness and weakness.
I’d like to think that I further feminist issues in music by being a technically proficient and confident ragtime guitarist and singer, but I don’t think I’d want to risk my music by becoming more outspoken on the issue which is perhaps a sad reflection on just how far there is to go in the struggle for gender equality within music.

I bought this on the strength of the track Technicolour. I’ve listened to a few track so far. I don’t really understand why this band is really famous. Their music is brilliant! I love their choice of instruments.

Finished listening now – This is my new favourite band.

Lucy Green has written some pretty interesting things about the sociology of music, in particular music and feminism and the tensions between the western classical music tradition and popular music. Although these topics might sound like they belong in acadmeic discussions alone I would disagree. Why would we want to tell the entire internet what we’re consuming and what we like consuming if we did not think that these choices reflected positively on us? In previous writing Lucy Green states that we like music not just because we like the order, pattern and sound of the music but also because we perceive particular music as having cultural and intelectual meanings which are not dependent on the noise itself. In music education in the UK western classical music has been held up as the superior music. Lucy Green seeks to illustrate ways in which informal music practices and learning methods can and should be incorporated into the school music curriculum.
The teaching of cultural values in school is, I believe, a political act. Middle Class teachers teach us middle class values, in turn the middle class children succeed and the working class children become more and more culturally impoverished. In the UK our class system means that children do not compete on a level playing field when it comes to their education. It’s not fair. EVERYONE does music! Everyone listens to it, plays it, hums it, sings it, everyone participates in music but only a small minority would consider their music activity as cultural activity. I’m interested in reading any book which explores issues of how social class affects the way in which we participate in cultural activities. What I can’t decide about Lucy Green is whether or not she secretly thinks that western classical music is superior and that popluar music might be the bait in which to engage the student in music lessons so that they can be “converted” into classical music lovers.
This kind of stuff keeps me awake at night! Music and social class – both of these things have had a profound affect on my life.

This isn’t worth consuming in the same way that Bedknobs and Broomsticks is worth consuming but, if you want some gritty, dark, european cinema then this is pretty compelling if not a little depressing. It’s worth watching mainly for some really good performances that haunt you a bit afterwards. Also some of the scenes are so well observed and shot so well that the tension is almost beautiful.

But Ken Follett is obsessed with ladies breasts! Once you realise this it kind of alters your appreciation of the book as you start to see the pattern that all the good women have big boobs and the badies and non-important female characters have flat chests. Also there seems to be a disproportionate amount of narrative given over to describing what the main female character’s boobs are up to at every given opportunity. It’s still a good book though and there is a good mix of storytelling and interesting factual information. I’m reading the sequel World Without End at the moment which is also good. However I do find it a bit dissapointing that he feels the need to mention the breast size of every female character, also, he’s done a U-turn in this book and the badies have large chests and the goodies have small, firm breasts which just makes me suspect that someone pointed out his underlying obsession in the first book and now he’s tried to over-correct the issue.

Well… I’m still smoking. Although it did say in the intoduction that you might have to read it more than once to make it sink in. I do reccommend it as it has helped a few people I know give up. However, once I noticed all the subliminal “dirty smoking” references I found my focus moved from reading the content of the book to just recognising the NLP running through it. I think I might try getting the audio book of it where this might be less obvious to me.

I bought this on vinyl second hand because I liked the picture and it was cheap. It’s now one of my favourite records. I love it because it’s just so musical (which sounds a bit silly but if you know what ISB sounds like then you might know what I mean) and not at all self-conscious. It just sounds like this is the sound that came out when they sat down and played together and got creative, it doesn’t sound like they tried to sound the way they do, just that it happened this way. It’s just really good!