This introductory chapter discusses the conceptual and methodological issues regarding the study of women's music-making, including vocality, subjectivity, individuals, theorization, contextualization, feminist theory and politics, understandings of woman and gender, identity politics, and authoring. The analysis is varied in terms of musical genres, geographical areas, and the role of singing in the life of the singer. The chapter develops its ideas around the proposition that the current understandings of what and how music means could be expanded by more flexible and socially based notions of “selves” as locally articulated in specific contexts. In mapping these occurrences, the chapter encompasses major events, life markers, moments of decisions, and elements of vocality, all placed in a broadly chronological life-story framework.