Music and Gender

 In my opinion, gender is a factor to music which makes a difference based on many different aspects. I think that gender in relation to music has changed a lot over the years, and is arguably very progressive in our current times. But in the past among ancient cultures, gender has a more traditional role in the way music is played and perceived. For example, in old Europe, men were musicians and played the instruments. Mozart had his piano, Beethoven had his violin, but women were mostly choral singers at that time. Opera was a big thing for women then and was made up of a large female group who harmonized together, while men played instruments. Going back even farther, the Native American unit and Andean unit were great representations of how music and gender culminate. The Andean man plays the harp while the woman makes the beat while singing. Or, the Native man does the fancy dance while the women do the slow methodic dances. I think that these traditions were established over time based on cultural appropriations and happenstance, and ended up becoming the basis for how music worked for these cultures.

 Fast forward to now and the past 100 years, music has taken a more progressive role through gender, and I believe this has to do with individual artists becoming famous, and influencing people based on their gender. In the past 100 years, famous female musicians and male musicians have become prominent, and set a stage for their gender. Taylor Swift is a good example, she is a highly influential and famous female musician who has her own lyrics and style, and has influenced both genders to listen. I think that girls listen to Taylor Swift for the most part, but some guys do too, and this helps progress gender's role in music. The rap and hip-hop industry has changed a ton on the basis of gender as well, where it has mostly been dominated by male artists. But now, women are starting to become very influential in the genre, using the same styles as all other rap artists have. This has made the music scene very progressive over time, where in the past, music was seprated by gender in the sense that men did one thing and women did the other. But now, women have the same roles in rap and hip-hop, as individual musicians, and as a part of music groups. A good example of this would be Fleetwood Mac, where the man and woman harmonize together. Overall, I think that gender has had a big impact on music in the past where it was very traditionalized, but as time has gone on, music and gender are very progressive and more men listen to female artists and more women listen to male artists.