Wednesday's Class and Blog

So, have you all enjoyed your snow days? I know we have--sledding, snow angels, and marshmallows roasted in the fire place. But, alas, all good things must come to an end, and life must eventually return to "normal."

As per Converse's edict for tomorrow, classes don't start until noon. So we won't have class on Wednesday. We will most likely have class on Thursday, though, and it will feature Dr. Doug Weeks and his amazing African slide show.

In terms of making up the lost time, Converse has declared that we have the option to meet this Saturday. I'd like to avoid that if I can, though, and I suspect I'm not alone in that sentiment. We could also go ahead and meet those last few days of January as well, but I'm still trying to avoid that if possible (my folks just sold their house, and I'd like to go visit them before the big move.) So I'm prepared to offer you all an alternative: Starting Friday, we could move the beginning of class forward to 8:30 am everyday. I'm guessing that none of you have any commitments at that hour with anything more exciting than your pillows, and the extra half-hour a day would at least get us into the ballpark of making up the time we've missed. The earlier meeting time would mean we could still end class a couple of days early AND not have to meet this Saturday. So think about it, and we'll discuss it during class on Thursday (assuming that we do, in fact, have class on Thursday).

Now, as to the Blog assignment that's on your syllabus for tomorrow (Wednesday). We'd postponed the Music and Family blog until next week, so that you have some additional time to think about your interview. Instead, this week's narrative blog will be Music and Gender. Even though we've all had lots of time to think about such things, I suspect that our minds have largely not been on scholarly topics (personally, I've spent the last two days playing in the snow, cooking stew, and organizing large swaths of my kitchen...ok, I've also been checking Facebook on a fairly regular basis as well...). Thus, let's make this blog due on Thursday, January 13 (by 11:00 pm) instead--that gives you an extra day to think, and we can discuss any questions you have in class on Thursday morning. (Friday's Cool Stuff Blog will remain due on Friday.) And here's the information for your assignment:

As we've already begun to notice, participation in music and the related arts is often proscribed by the gender of the potential participator. For your Music and Gender Blog, I want you all to muse on how music and gender have intersected in your own musical experiences. Were there certain instruments played more by more boys, or more by girls, in your marching band? Did the bass section act differently from the soprano section in your church choir? Did you find that middle school boys and middle school girls tended to listen to different stuff on the radio, or was it about the same? And, of course, do you find that you experience music differently in Converse's almost-all-women environment than in a mixed gender setting?

I'm sure I've told you all the story about my mother-in-law, Karen. She grew up in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1950s, the second of four children. She really wanted to play the drums (if any of you have ever met Karen, this should come as no surprise--she's one of the most physically active folks I've ever known), but girls just didn't do that in Dayton in the 1950s. So she took piano lessons, like a good girl. And her two sisters played the flute, another acceptable "girl" instrument. (Odd-but-entertaining side note: Karen's mother, Isabel, fondly remembers hearing another piano student from a rival Dayton piano studio from the same time period--young Doug Weeks.)

Fast forward to Flint, Michigan about ten years ago. Karen, all grown up, decided it was never too late to live the dream. She found a marimba at a pawn shop and signed up for private lessons at the Community Music School in Flint. Over the next few years she practiced diligently, getting good enough to play on a number of student recitals, use four mallets at a time, and give herself carpal tunnel syndrome. The marimba now lives in their guest bedroom in their home in Asheville, NC, where her granddaughter Tally often gets the mallets out of their bag and bangs out various melodies on the marimba. And no one thinks that this is weird at all. Girls playing the marimba? Or any other sort of percussion instrument? Totally normal! It's the 21st century in America!

So this is just an example from my own world of how gender can affect someone's personal interaction with music, and how that gender/music link can drastically change over the course of 50-60 years. I'm sure that you have stories of your own to tell. So, please, do so. On your blog. By 11:00 pm Thursday evening.