Blue Hairs

[snyprrr]

Are old ladies the bane of good music? Stories?

[Guido]

They probably support more of it than many of us would wish to acknowledge. I don't mind 'em. They're probably no less conservative than the average person when it comes to classical music.

I recently reread the Heyman Samuel Barber biography, and Barber recounts that the old ladies walked out during his Medea Suite - which is really hardly dissonant considering it was 1947! But it seems like things haven't changed and wont change in that regard. I'm sure I've read accounts of people walking out of Brahms in the late 19th century because it was too modern.

love the term 'Blue Hairs' though!

[some guy]

When I hear the word "blue hairs" I always think of composers I know who are sixty or older. Pauline Oliveros, Alice Shields, Eliane Radigue, Michele Bokanowski--they're all new music types, composers of wild and outrageous music. They might walk out on a Barber, but only because it's so old and "pretty"!!

[mahler10th]

Sofia Gubaidulina doesn't look like a composer, more a refuge from Stalinism, but...hear her music - astonishing stuff.

[matti]

Sofia Gubaidulina doesn't look like a composer, more a refuge from Stalinism, but...hear her music - astonishing stuff.

What does a composer look like?

[jochanaan]

...They're probably no less conservative than the average person when it comes to classical music...

I got to talking to one of those "blue hairs" in Boulder, Colorado, once, and it turned out that Bartok was one of her favorite composers! And you'd never have guessed it by looking at her; she looked very 'Church Lady', but her musical taste was definitely adventurous.

[Bulldog]

Are old ladies the bane of good music? Stories?

What do you have against elderly women?  Show some respect - you could learn a few things from them.

[mahler10th]

What does a composer look like?

A composer.

[Bulldog]

What does a composer look like?

This is the role model:

[snyprrr]

What do you have against elderly women?  Show some respect - you could learn a few things from them.

hrumph.

[snyprrr]

They have a bad reputation. Some of the posters have shown this to be less than universally deserved. However...

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

What does a composer look like?

And what does a "refugee from Stalinism" look like? 

[Senta]

When I hear the word "blue hairs" I always think of composers I know who are sixty or older. Pauline Oliveros, Alice Shields, Eliane Radigue, Michele Bokanowski--they're all new music types, composers of wild and outrageous music. They might walk out on a Barber, but only because it's so old and "pretty"!!

Oh my goodness, I got to meet and eat dinner at the same table as Pauline Oliveros at last year's CMS/ATMI Conference...she is a hoot! Man, did she have the stories.... 

[pjme]

Mrs Slocombe made it infamous in "Are You Being Served" but now it seems it has had its day. Sales of blue rinse are so low that at least one supermarket has announced its no longer going to stock it.

Should we mourn or celebrate the passing of those doughty ladies known as the "blue rinse brigade"?  Edwina Currie, former Conservative government minister, writer and broadcaster and Professor Caroline Cox author of Good Hair Days: The History of British Hairstyling and Hair and Fashion, join Martha to chart the history of the blue rinse. 

Good Hair Days: The History of British Hairstyling, Quartet Books, ISBN: 0704381117

Hair and Fashion, V & A Publications, ISBN: 1851774572

[springrite]

I have heard the question "are you a real blonde" being asked, but I have never overheard the question "do you have real blue hair". Maybe it is the horror of verification procedure that stopped the encquiring minds.

[Solitary Wanderer]

Here's someone who's a 'natural blue' 



Regarding the elderly ladies 'blue rinse brigade', it's interesting to me that somebody would prefer to have blue hair than the grey/white they are covering up  I guess it looks more 'even'.