Klarinet Archive - Posting 000666.txt from 2004/10

From: "DWH" <dwh46@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Is Clarinet for Girly Boys Only?
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 13:33:50 -0400

Uh-oh...then where do guys like me fall in line, Sue? :>)
My ex-wife left me with our then seven-year-old son ten years ago, and I
have still managed to work a 50-60 hours-a-week regular job and play
regularly in a big band, a community band and local musical theater. He's a
high school senior this year and has weathered the storms well. It helped
that he decided around the age of ten he liked hanging out at rehearsals if
they weren't too late, and has become a pretty good musician in his own
right.

But I can say that the women in all of our local community and pro groups
are either high school /college age, or 40 years old and up, so I would say,
based on that fact, you are probably right.

I also remember that my sister, also a clarinetist, hadn't played since
college when she, her husband (a pastor) and their two kids moved to
Steubenville, Ohio about ten years ago. She was talked into joining the
local community band, and at age thirty-two was not only the youngest woman
there by about fifteen years (she sat next to a sixty-year-old nun for three
years) but the youngest member, period.

Maybe some enterprising person would do well to start a daycare/babysitting
service for musical moms...My mother quit playing piano regularly for twenty
years to work and raise two children, and although she's not sorry she did,
I wish she could have continued doing something she loves so much.

Don

> There obviously is a big change in the ratio after
> college and I think it probably has something to
> do with the fact that women start having babies and
> their priorities are with their children/families?
>
> Sue

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org