Can you hear the sex of a composer?
The challenge is on! Simply listen to these seven extracts (it will take less than 4 minutes), and guess the sex of each composer. Let me know what you think – and why.
Which one(s) were written by women?
By the way, I explored some of the issues at stake in this post.
shadowofthecourtesan 
1. Woman 2. Man 3. Woman 4. Woman 5. Man 6. Woman 7. Man
Very interesting – challenges stereotypes of “grand”, “loud”, “bold”, “sweet”, and “if it’s Haydn-like then it must be by a man”.
Interesting choices – thanks for taking the time to do this!
1,4,5,7 women
So, early polls suggest that 1 and 4 were written by women – interesting, very interesting 😉
1. Male 2. Female 3. Female 4. Male 5. Female 6. Female 7. Male. I’m afraid I can’t articulate why I think this.
Well, you’ve demonstrated beautifully that you cannot tell simply from the music – you got one “right” but I won’t say which one, so as not to spoil it for others! THANK YOU!