Music & Gender

    

I can give a couple of personal examples of how gender roles have affected my journey and maybe even my taste in music, in positive and negative ways.

 Just like most public-schooled children, my sister and I were required to learn a musical instrument for our homeschool curriculum. Understandably, my parents would not budget for two teachers and two commutes, so it was up to my sister and I to agree on an instrument. I wanted to learn the banjo, she wanted to learn violin. While I always loved violin music, what I couldn't agree with was my parents deciding we would both learn violin on the basis that it was the more "ladylike" choice. Though I stuck violin lessons out for a year, my heart was never in it and I didn't get along with my teacher, and to this day I would not claim to even dabble on the violin.

    My draw to the banjo was definitely something I picked up in church. I went to a fairly large church where music was taken seriously and there were several groups who spent many, many hours together practicing and writing songs. My own parents were involved in our first churches music program, my dad lead the choir as well as served as a deacon and my mom accompanied the choir on piano and taught Sunday school. My favorite band in our church was always the mens' bluegrass quartet, though they were certainly not the only talented group. The banjo picker in this performance happened to also be my calculus professor at community college. This is Stay by the Brook by the Holly Springs Bluegrass Quartet.

I think in folk, expectations of gender influence the music in some very direct ways. This is especially perceptible in songs that emerge during war and famine. While no one can deny the popularity and vital energy of rebel songs, if you listen to enough of them you may begin to notice a pattern, they are typically sung by men, while the womens' songs of the time may sound a bit different, perhaps even sometimes contrary in message. While men left home and faced war, women were left alone and felt the loss in different ways, often without ever feeling anything close to glory or freedom. In this next song, while the circumstances of the woman's fate aren't clear, the tone of her message is one that is heard throughout this sub-genre of womens' music. This is Land o' the Leal sung by Hannah Rarity.