Through out grade school I noticed a difference in the music that girls like and the music that boys like. The first person that I heard talk about rap was a boy. The first person I heard talking about Brittney Spears was a girl.
In orchestra, most bass players were male. When I was in middle school and high school, I only saw two girls who played the bass, and they were not in my schools' orchestras. The first time I saw a female bass player I was in the Region I Orchestra. I found it fascinating that there were girls who actually played the bass, and wondered why I did not play the bass. The smaller the instrument, the more girls seemed to play them. A couple of girls played the cello, a couple played the viola, and of course the majority of the violin section were girls.
Although I have never been in band, I have spent plenty of time observing them at pep rallies, high school and college football games, and concerts. I noticed that the majority of the students playing percussion were male. In the band at my high school, the flute section was all girls.
I have even noticed some sort of gender segregation within my church choir! Of course there are no male sopranos. There are not any male altos either. The problem, or situation, is that there is a lady that has a very low voice. She could totally sing bass, not tenor, but bass. Instead, she has been placed in the alto section (I guess they were afraid of her standing out). In the alto section, she actually sings the melody, just very low.
Within my own family I have noticed certain differences between the genders when it comes to music. It could be simply because of their different interests, but my father's father has had more experience with music than my grandmother. He knows a decent amount of piano. This means that he knows how to peck out a tune. In fact, he was one of the first ones to teach me how to play a couple of little tunes on the piano. He is also much more willing to sing solos at church than my grandmother is. Both of my grandparents sing in the church choir, but my grandmother does not seem to know how to play the piano, and when it comes to singing solos, she does not. My mother's parents are a bit more balanced. Neither one of them sing in the church choir, but my grandmother did take voice lessons from the choir director. She also took piano lessons for a little while. My grandfather, on the other hand, does not play an instrument, but he does whistle a lot and randomly breaks out into song through out the day. His tunes usually come from hymns, but the words may or may not have anything to do with Baby Jesus.
It is such a shame that the woman that sings bass could not sing in her section. I realize that she would probably look out of place, but she should be able to sing in the range in which she is most comfortable. My high school band's flute section was all girls, too. The only section that was pretty evenly mixed was the trumpet section. That's really good that your grandparents enjoy making music. My grandmother played a little piano, and my grandfather played violin, but that's it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emma! If the lady can sing bass, by all means, let her! There was only one girl that played bass in my high school orchestra.I really like that your grandparents enjoy making music as well!
ReplyDeleteBrittany, Wow! I had never heard of a female bassist except for a girl I went to high school with! Kudos to her! She must have a mighty powerful voice!
ReplyDeleteI think its interesting to see that you saw so much gender seperation in music in comparison to my school, even though they weren't that far away. I guess a big factor was the interest in the music program. You were at a bigger school with more students who had an interest in music, so they could pretty much play what ever they wanted. Whenever someone entered Chesnee's music programs, their talents as well as the programs needs were looked at. If we needed a tuba player, it wasn't uncommon to swipe a trumpet player for the job.
It was just interesting to look at the difference between out experiences within our respective high schools.
Firstly, I would like to hear this woman speak!
ReplyDeleteI greatly enjoyed your opening thought, about the "pop" music girls and boys listened to while growing up. Thinking about it, don't have a clue as to whether or not boys listened to Britney Spears and Mandy Moore, or if they preferred to spend their time copying the hip gyrations and hair gel choices of N'Sync and 98º because, at that time, boys were still gross.
I mean...if you think about it...they still are gross. :)
Hm. If only we had a boy our age that we could ask.
Great blog, Brittany.
We've had women singing tenor in both my current church choir and the previous one I was in--both Episcopal churches. And we've had a few women playing the bass here at Converse--not many, but a few. In fact, the current director of the Spartanburg Arts Partnership has a wife that's a professional string bass player.
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