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Re: BBC: Fewer kids are learning to play instruments

Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-09-21 11:54

>>It is good to find things evening up.>>

Indeed. The same is happening in the USA. The sections that used to be all-male or all-female are still predominantly one or the other. There are more girls than boys in the local flute sections and more boys than girls in the percussion and brass sections. The clarinets look close to equal. But the big change arrived years ago: kids of either sex are free to choose their instruments without being banned or mocked by the band directors.

I wore a pendant in the shape of a bass clarinet while yard-saling this past weekend and it led to an interesting conversation with a woman I'd never met before, the clarinet-playing director of a local school band, and with her mother, who plays alto clarinet. I think the band director is probably in her late twenties or early thirties. When her mom and I talked about the stigma against women playing the lower-pitched winds when we were kids, it was clear that, to the band director, we were talking about ancient history -- the Bad Old Days when teachers and school administrators would have discouraged a young woman from learning to conduct, too.

Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.

Post Edited (2010-09-21 11:57)

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