Music and Gender

As we’ve already begun to notice, participation in music and the related arts is often proscribed by the gender of the potential participator. For your Music and Gender Blog, I want you all to muse on how music and gender have intersected in your own musical experiences. Were there certain instruments played more by more boys, or more by girls, in your marching band? Did the bass section act differently from the soprano section in your church choir? Did you find that middle school boys and middle school girls tended to listen to different stuff on the radio, or was it about the same? And, of course, do you find that you experience music differently in Converse’s almost-all-women environment than in a mixed gender setting?

I’ve told many of you the story about my mother-in-law, Karen. She grew up in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1950s, the second of four children. She really wanted to play the drums, but girls just didn’t do that in Dayton in the 1950s. So she took piano lessons, like a good girl. And her two sisters played the flute, another acceptable “girl” instrument. (Odd-but-entertaining side note: Karen’s mother, Isabelle, fondly remembered hearing another piano student from a rival Dayton piano studio from the same time period—young Doug Weeks.)

Fast forward to Flint, Michigan about twenty years ago. Karen, all grown up and in her mid-50s, decided it was never too late to live the dream. She found a marimba at a pawn shop and signed up for private lessons at the Community Music School in Flint. Over the next few years she practiced diligently, getting good enough to play on a number of student recitals, use four mallets at a time, and give herself carpal tunnel syndrome. Karen passed away several years ago, and the marimba stood in the spare bedroom waiting for its next person. Then, a few years ago Karen’s only grandchild (my daughter, Tally), started playing percussion in the school band, so for her thirteenth birthday we brought the marimba to Spartanburg. It now lives in our study (aka “The Marimba Room”), where Tally is (somewhat) diligently practicing on it for All-State Band tryouts next weekend. It’s her favorite instrument to play. And no one thinks that this is weird at all. Girls playing the marimba? Or any other sort of percussion instrument? Totally normal! It’s the 21st century in America!

So this is just an example from my own world of how gender can affect someone’s personal interaction with music, and how that gender/music link can drastically change over the course of 50-60 years. I’m sure that you have stories of your own to tell. So, please, do so. On your blog. By 11:59 pm on Thursday. Yes, that's a day later than was originally on the syllabus--you've all been working hard, so let's give you a small break. Comments will be due by 11:59 on Friday night.