Hi there,

I'm writing a book on gender and am looking for males who play harp and females who play drumkit. I've chosen those as examples of non-typical gender instruments, borne out by the fact that I've not been able to contact any yet!

If you can help me out, or know someone who can, then please let me know - it would entail a phone call of around 15 minutes.


Happy noodling,

Tony

I know of no male harpists - apart from a druid friend of mine who plays knee-harp a little - but there are several high profile female drummers, from Palmolive to Sheila E to Terri-Lynn Carrington or Marilyn Mazur, so I'm sure you'll find others at a more basic level.

nick

I can think of several. One of our local players is a harpist called Dylan Cernyw. I am sure that Google would find him. Another is our Anglesey Forum event accompanist, Arwel. They aren't so rare in this part of the country.

Hi Tony

This probably doesn't help, but quite a few of my female pupils learn the drums. I think if you're doing any kind of statistical analysis it might be skewed by the fact that the harp is quite a specialist instrument, whereas I think most schools offer drum lessons (apologies if your research has shown that not to be the case).

Have you read Lucy Green? She teaches at the Institute of Education and is something of an authority on this area of research.

Thanks for the quick replies. I haven't read Lucy Green, will follow her up though.

This isn't statistical, just looking for a few people to tell their stories. So even someone with middling experience (2-3 years) would be great, as long as they had a passion for what they did!


Regards,

Tony

I remember him as the excellent harpist in Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra way back, and they had another male harpist perhaps in the 1950s called Michael Jefferies. No idea if he's still around though. There's also a harpist called Rupert McShane, I think somewhere around Oxford.

There have been various female members of percussions sections in professional orchestras. Possibly the best known, Maggie Cotton, has written a recent book called Wrong Ess-E-ex(!), Wrong Instrument.

And one of the the most famous male harpists of all - Osian Ellis.

Surely the best known is Evelyn Glennie .... not usually a kit drummer though, which was the question.

nick

There is always Caroline Corr. I don't think drummers come much better looking.

Do you want UK based only? If not, going to the forums of www.harpcolumn.com might well find you willing interviewees.

I think that you might find that playing Drum Kit is not that uncommon amungst teenage girls. Out of the 4 percussionists in Band 3 of them are girls who also play kit (one's my eldest). I know of three other girls who also play or have played in the past and another of my daughter's friends who has just started to learn.

I suspect a visit to your local High School might reveal a few girl drummers.

I'm a percussionist, who therefore plays kit, and I'm female. Do I count?!

As someone who's done academic research on this area, I'm surprised you haven't read Lucy Green. She is one of the most well-known authors on music and gender, but there is a huge amount of other material. Have you read Citron, McClary, Butler, Moisala & Diamond, Solie, Walser, Halstead, Rieger, Cook & Tsou...? (some of those more on gender and composition, admittedly, but important to be aware of if you're writing anything on gender). PM me if you want me to send you a bibliography.

Make that very surprised. And don't forget O'Neil. Is this book an academic work or more anecdotal?

Or, given that you're a percussionist, should the question be 'can you count?' The answer, I suspect, is 'yes'

nick

Hehe. It's questionnable, but I hope that the answer is generally 'yes'!

There's always the silent one . . .

Shaolin-monkey (I think that's his name) on this site is a newbie harpist, I think he's been learning for less than 3 years - if you go to the Viva Strings section and search on harp, you'll find some threads by him so can then pm him if I've got his name wrong.

Male harpists are fairly rare - in the under 16 class at the National Eisteddfod this year there were ten contestants and only one was male - he played exceedlingly well and came third (I think - I did sit through the whole competition but it took over 2 hours to hear everyone play and then we had to wait for the judgement) but we went to the pub after that so recollection is a bit hazy!

Funnily enough I did a Last Night of the proms gig last night and we had a male harpist and a female drummer.

It's not academic at all, and music is only around 5% of the book so I can't get too stuck into the literature! These are all good names though, so as long as I can find some précises (précii? précu?) of their work it will all help.

Thanks to those who've responded, I'm sure I'll be coming back to this forum in the future.

Tony