Promoting awareness of unconscious gender bias in the evaluation of harp performance

ABSTRACT

Music is vulnerable to unconscious bias through visual extramusical factors. Traditional male/female gender bias affects instrument choice and impacts performance evaluation negatively. This study investigates gender bias in assessing harp performance. Harp performers (one male, one female) recorded three musical excerpts, all dubbed with the female performer’s audio. Listener-viewers assessed performances on five criteria and were blinded to the study purpose. Follow-up interviews explored awareness of unconscious gender bias. There were no significant differences between ratings for each gender but there were significant interactions between gender and musical excerpt for overall performance quality, musicality and sensitivity. Interviews revealed no explicit gender bias but discovered feminine associations for harp performance resulting in gendered descriptors rather than musical assessments. Listener-viewers demonstrated preconceived gendered expectations of harpists and were susceptible to gender bias in their evaluations of each musical excerpt. Perceptual evaluations can inform and educate future music assessors about unconscious gender bias.

KEYWORDS:

• unconscious bias
• gender
• music performance
• music evaluation
• non-verbal communication

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the harp performers and listener-viewer participants for taking the time to participate in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Moloney

Kate Moloney is a professional harpist and music educator from Sydney, Australia. She has completed a Bachelor of Music Honours I and Masters of Music Studies from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. Her research investigates the perception of music performance in relation to the influence of unconscious bias.

Helen F. Mitchell

Helen F. Mitchell is Associate Professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. She studied music at Oxford University then moved to The University of Sydney, where her PhD focused on singing pedagogy, acoustics and perception. As Australian Postdoctoral Fellow, her research tracked the impact of singing training on the development of the singing voice. Her current research investigates audiences’ perceptions of music performers, by sound alone and through an audio-visual fusion of sensory information. She translates multisensory music into experiential learning strategies for music performers.