Growing up I notice that gender plays a big role in music, at least in my culture. In China, music is male-dominated. It was hard for women to go into the music industry. Women do not have any rights or privileges. It has gotten better now but women still have to fight to get into the music industry. There are more women in the music industry now but it is still male-dominated.
I remember when I was little I used to watch a lot of movies. The majority of the movies' setting is in ancient times like the dynasties. The music was beautiful, melodious, harmonious, and calming. The females would dance and the males would play the instruments.
Chinese music now is more upbeat. My parents are always up to date on the most recently popular songs. I notice that all the popular songs are sung and written by males. Songs that were written by females never get popular, at least as popular as the males' songs.
I feel that the marching band in my high school is also gender-based. The girls play the clarinet and piccolo while the boys play the saxophone, french horn, drum, cabinet, tuba, and trombone. I do not know if it was intentional or not. The school dance team and the flag team were also all girls.
I was in the chorus during my last year of middle school. The teacher would divide the class into sopranos and altos. The altos were mostly boys and the sopranos were mostly girls. I do not know if this is because the girls' voices are higher pitch and the boys' voices are lower pitch or if it was unintentional. He would put the sopranos on the right side of the room and the altos on the left side of the room. I do not know the purpose of that. I did not like the class because of the teacher but it was a good experience.
Overall, I have my fair share of gender-based music. I feel that music is male-dominated and I hope that more females go into the music industry in the future. Music should not be gender-based or gender stereotypic. Men and women should feel comfortable playing any instruments they want and should not be told what is muscular and what is feminine. Music would be better if it has an equal amount of both genders playing and that there are no restrictions based on gender.
I believe that soprano and alto is based on the range of the voice and the separating of the sections is more for the director so they can easily teach the parts of the song that each section must sing. If they were jumbled up in a large group sometimes it can be difficult to keep to the notes of your section if you are surround by people who have to sing at maybe lower notes. I know when I was in chorus I was an alto but if I were close to the soprano section I would start singing their parts.
ReplyDeleteHi WenTing,
ReplyDeleteI have been in chorus for really all my life. Because of this, I found it quite interesting that men were considered altos. Most of the men in our choir were either a tenor and bass, so it's nice to hear about a different culture and the way they do things. It was neat to know that men dominate in the music industry. Here, I feel like we have a good mixture between our men muscians and women musician, at least with most genres. I love your last paragraph. You are completely right in regards to women should feel just as capable as men. I hope that China does get more women in the music industry!
It's interesting to hear that popular music in China seems to have a decided gender divide. I'd always been under the impression that modern-day China worked to erase gender differences, but it seems that's not the case. I have noticed as I teach this course, though, that there are a few instruments that seem to be more acceptable for young women--and yes, they are the soft, pretty ones. I'll be curious to see what you think of the videos we watch during class.
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