In this blog I will be choosing to cover the topic of music and gender.
Throughout my life I believe that I have had a diverse experience with gender and music. My teachers have been both men and women and many of the ensembles I've played in have been extremely diverse. Orchestra is probably the easiest example for this because I specifically remember in our cello section every male was seated next to a female. This was not to spread out the class but it was a mere coincidence that both the gals and the guys were equally as skilled. I was also in percussion ensemble in high school and the ratio there was also really spread. When I play gigs, I have discovered that mainly women sing and that men play the instruments. Although this is not always the case it is a trend that I have seen in my time playing, most of my influences through gigs have been male. I asked myself why that might be the case in America and why I am not totally certain my only thought would be that it could stem from the idea of the competitive nature of getting better at your instrument. Through my experiences even if our brains function differently we all can feel and love music.
With the genres of music that people listen to, I do think that it is slightly discriminatory. From my experiences with liking progressive rock and progressive metal there are not many women in this genre. I have also witnessed first hand females being shamed for liking this style of music even though it was fine for me to. One female that I know of that breaks this mold is Ninet Tayeb. She is an Israeli musician who sings with Steven Wilson (the singer for Porcupine Tree) on the song "Pariah." Prog has always been stigmatized as a male dominated genre but women like Ninet Tayeb are breaking this mold.
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Comments
I love your personal experience that you brought into the beginning! I have noticed that more recently, percussion ensembles have become more evenly spread between guys and girls and it makes my heart happy! I loved the song Pariah as well. Great post!
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on this Josh. I had never really taken into consideration which gender dominates which genre, but you are 100% on the money. My fiance listens to a lot of rock, and I don't think I have ever heard, but maybe 1 or 2 females because that genre is mostly male dominant. Pretty interesting if you ask me, and I think this could tie into a point that Kerrigan made on her blog is that there are "certain expectations" of the genders when it comes to the music they produce.
ReplyDeleteGreat story Josh. I am not that much into rock but I enjoyed hearing your take on this. thank you for sharing . It is really cool to know that there are some girl rock singers.
ReplyDeleteHey Josh! I've played around in Greenville's local music scene, and I noticed a pattern of there being fewer female guitarists, drummers, bassists etc. too. In the past few years though, I've started to see a couple of more talented female musicians pop up in the upstate which has been very exciting. I actually didn't realize how few women play prog rock until you mentioned it. If you like prog rock/ math rock Tho-Melanie Faye is an absolutely phenomenal guitarist. If you're curious check out her song, it's a Moot Point. I enjoyed the song you shared very much! Thank you for sharing!
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