David,
This reminds me of the Guitar Foundation of America convention I attended
in 2007. I went to a lecture with Greg Goodheart about the GFA's initiative to
get classical guitar programs in elementary and high schools. One of the big
obstacles mentioned was the fact that most of the students interested in taking
a guitar class are white males. Programs that cater to this un-diverse segment
of the student body are a big no-no in the eyes of school administrations in
the US.
There were only about ten people in this particular lecture (it was 8:00am)
and the discussion had been lively up among all of us until this point. Two of
the attendees were women and Greg called upon them to give us males their
insight into the situation. One of the gals started out, "I dunno. We're just
busy with stuff..." and simply trailed off into an awkward silence. The other
woman refused to say anything. Greg was forced to move on to other topics.
After the lecture, I asked the silent woman - who happen to be my wife -
why on earth she hadn't said anything since I know she has opinions on this
matter. She said she felt intimidated in a room full of guys. But she told me
that she feels that more girls don't get into guitar because at that age its so
competitive with the young guys trying to outdo one another showing off how
fast/loud they can play rather than how well they present the music. A
predominantly male guitar class would present an ueber-competitive and
unfriendly environment. She also said she's even had a number of her female
teenage guitar students quit their private lessons as soon as they start
dating. Many times this is because the boyfriend also plays guitar and the
girls don't want to show up/compete with their beaus in musical realms. Sad.
In light of this, I thought of how incredibly ironic the next GFA education
lecture was. The topic was how to incorporate flamenco techniques into a (at
this point, still hypothetical) classical guitar curriculum. Flamenco, the
presenter told us, was "ideally suited" for a high school guitar course because
it had "dark associations" and, since it involved a lot of fast scales and loud
rasgueados, would create a competitive environment in which the kids would try
to out-do one another because "any teenagers interested in a guitar class will
thrive on that sort of thing"!
Chris
--- On Fri, 9/11/09, David Tayler <vidan...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> From: David Tayler <vidan...@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: Imbalance
> To: "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
> Date: Friday, September 11, 2009, 12:26 AM
>
> >This is a real problem, and not a simple one. I'm not
> the expert
> >here, obviously, and never will be, but I have some
> indirect experience.
>
> On the one hand, the lute model is the opposite of the viol
> model.
> Many women play the viol, and the organization of the
> societies for
> viol encourages that.
> The lute has failed miserably in this respect.
> On the other hand, I have received numerous complaints from
> women who
> went to lute workshops about the way they were treated. The
> most
> typical complaint is having four guys follow a female lute
> player
> around on breaks, being treated differently for no apparent
> reason
> other than gender, for example, being asked to play lute
> duets in
> preference to more experienced players, and so on. I have
> had people
> tell me they would not come back, nor go to ANY workshop as
> a result
> of their experiences. Of course, some of this goes on at
> any workshop.
>
> I don't really have a solution, except that the viols do
> this better,
> maybe we can learn from them. Part of it may be the
> emphasis on part
> music. Most of it must be a comfort level.
>
> dt
>
>
>
>
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> > > Of the last 100 individuals to post
> to this list, 95 were men. Is this
> > > representative of the wider lute
> world? Any ideas why?
> > >
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > >
> > >To get on or off this list see list information
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> >
> >
> >Edward Martin
> >2817 East 2nd Street
> >Duluth, Minnesota 55812
> >e-mail: e...@gamutstrings.com
> >voice: (218) 728-1202
> >http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660298871&ref=name
> >http://www.myspace.com/edslute
>
>
>
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