Gender, Genre and Electroacoustic Soundmaking Practices

This article is an exploration of how genres and practices of electroacoustic soundmaking are gendered, examining processes of gendering in language used in the early dichotomous categorization between musique concrète and elektronische Musik, then thinking about related arguments concerning abstraction, context, and compositional control in the writings of electroacoustic soundmakers including Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Boulez, Daphne Oram, Pauline Oliveros, and several participants of the In and Out of the Sound Studio project. Analysis of their practices and ideas suggests different ways of conceptualising electroacoustic genres, their related practices, and roles of contemporary electroacoustic soundmakers (composers, artists, producers, mixers, audiences...), by examining the potentials of the concepts of empathetic knowledge and ecological thinking advanced by feminist epistemologist Lorraine Code.