Music and Gender

I don't really have much to say about music and gender other than the observations I was able to make during my years in orchestra and maybe some non-academic situations. When I started orchestra in the sixth grade, the majority of violinists (first and second) were male, as were the cellists and the bassists, but when it came to the viola, there were no male players, as a matter of fact, the violists were the minority of the bunch. This stayed the same except for a rare occasion in the eighth grade where we had two boy violists, me being the only girl. For some reason during the middle of the year, they became slack and uninterested in playing the viola and decided to sit with their instruments in their laps and pluck throughout every piece that we played. They soon became obsolete and dropped the class leaving me to battle forces between octaves by myself. Things went back to normal in high school with less male violinists but more male bassist and cellists.

The males throughout primary school listened to varying genres of rock, hiphop, and rap. They would usually display their interest in music through their clothing and other accessories like stickers on notebooks or drumsticks with their favourite band tucked into the back pockets of their jeans.

In elementary school and throughout high school, there was always room left for bubblegum pop music for girls. The more mature girls usually branched away and found their niche in indie pop or rock music. Rap music was a minority due to the small amount of female rap artists. Rock music was always a welcoming genre to both genders. I think that rock is more popular to both genres because of it's history. My generation probably grew up listening to the music in which their parents listened to as teenagers.