Gender Theme in Musical Cultures of World Civilizations

Abstract

Deals with the problem of gender and its interpretation in the musical culture of different civilizations, as well as analyses the problem of male and female musical professionalism and the social status of male and female musitions on the examples of world civilizations. The systematical construction «male and female», which is natural for every society, has to be implied in scientific research of the sound-musical tradition. The support on the anthropomorphous dichotomic idea of the Universe (Heaven and Earth, male and female, light and dark) in the symbolic structure of the musical instruments of many cultures is the universal principle in world music cultures. Thus, the mystical joining in the sect cosmic energy of the two opposite elements - a female and male - was reflected in the symbolic correlation and sounding of a number of Indonesian gamelan instruments. In a number of cultures the categories «male-female» was reflected in the type of the sounding. Generally, three main levels of the «Women - Society - Music» problem could be singled out: 1) participation of women in activities linked this way or another with music making along with men without apparent limitation; 2) female music making separated as a special socio-cultural niche as a result of discriminatory measures reflecting that or other ideology; 3) the moulding of a special layer of music (genres, styles, types, manners of performance) inside the established female music making tradition.