Sex and Instruments.

Subject: Sex and Instruments.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:05 PM

I have never seen any man play a recorder, and i have never seen any woman play a banjo.
waht do you think about this?

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:06 PM

A recorder is not too different from a pipe and I've seen many men play them. As for women playing banjo I know quite a few of them.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:08 PM

oh.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:09 PM

I think you have led a sheltered life, John!

A

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:11 PM

Ya... What Amos said....

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Mudlark
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:21 PM

It's amazing, John, what women are doing out there these days. Drag racing, long haul truck driving, banjo playing, you name it. Times are changing. In years past it was not seemly for a woman to play a banjo,   an instrument considered too crass for her dainty sensibilities. I'm not saying it's right, but that restriction has gone by the boards.

It did used to surprise me, however, that the tiny, delicate mandolin seemed to also fall in this category. All those '70's bluegrass bands, great hulking redneck fellas with fingers like bananas, just wailing on an instrument so small it has to be held high up on their chests...while some guy's wife was thumping away at the back of the group on a string base bigger than she was. What was THAT all about?

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:35 PM

In general the best advice is to put the instruments down carefully first.


A

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: GUEST,Ely
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:48 PM

My dad has played the recorder for years, and the best banjo player I know is a girl (so are some of the best bass players).

Come to think of it, I do know some really massive mandolin-players, too.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:57 PM

Yes, instruments do have sex. Especially accordions. I know this because a large number of people refer to them specifically as "fucking accordions". And they're right! Where do you think harmonicas come from?

Bruce

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:59 PM

My neighbor Debby McClatchy is a mean banjo player. She tours the UK at least once a year. There's another American woman who plays the banjo, lives in the UK, and is on the list of performers every year at Whitby Folk Week. And if I weren't trying to think of her name, it would come to me right away - Ah, with help of a database, I remembered it was Sara Grey.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 10:04 PM

Well, just because she is a banjo player doesn't mean she shouldn't put it down carefully first, Joe!

A

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 10:20 PM

Female banjo players? Allison Brown. 'Nuff said.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: kendall
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 10:45 PM

Debbie McClatchy, Kathy Barton and Sara Grey. All outstanding banjo pickers.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 10:53 PM

A mandolin, on the size beer gut, can look a lot like a large tick. I haven't seen too many female tuba players, but then, I haven't seen too many tubas in folkie settings.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 11:19 PM

I'm trying to think of some instrument- any instrument that is gender specific. Ah. I've thought of one.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 11:22 PM

Whats a dyke?

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 11:27 PM

anyway=maybe is some woman playingf banjos, but i never seen them, [i not saying there isent any,, i just saying i never seen them],
and i seen one woman trumpet player, she in chuma wumba.
i seen another one as well, dont know waht shes called.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 11:27 PM

Murphy Henry is a heck of a banjo picker.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 11:39 PM

Actually the first tuba player I ever knew was an English gal named Verna, and she played enthusiastic tuba for an amateur Dixieland band. She was darn good, too!

A

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Cluin
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 12:51 AM

Female banjo player?   Kristin Scott Benson. Saw her this summer at a bluegrass fest. Picked up her CD. Great player!

And Bob Homme, the Friendly Giant played a mean recorder. Grew up watching him on the CBC every day. Theme song for it was "Early One Morning" and it sounded beautiful on recorder.

Subject: Lyr Add: A WANTON TRICK (from D'Urfey)
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 12:39 PM

A Wanton Trick

Source: Coeur d'Ennui Letchers Guild Songbook Edited by William Coeur du Boeuf;
Thomas D'Urfey's Songs of Wit and Mirth, or Pills to purge Melancholy
Note from Letchers Guild Songbook:
A musical metaphor. PTPM has several more verses that I left out.

If anyone long for a musical song,
Although that his hearing be thick,
The sound that it bears will ravish his ears,
Tis but a wanton trick!

A pleasant young maid on an instrument played,
That knew neither note, nor prick,
She had a good will to live by her skill,
Tis but a wanton trick!

A youth in that art, well seen in his part,
They called him Derbyshire Dick,
Came to her a suitor and would be her tutor,
Tis but a wanton trick!

To run with his bow he was not slow,
His fingers were nimble and quick.
When he played on his bass, he ravised the lass:
Tis but a wanton trick!

He pleased her so well that backwards she fell,
And swoon-ed as though she were sick,
So sweet was his note that up went her coat,
Tis but a wanton trick!

The string of his viol she put to the trial,
Till she had the full length of the stick.
Her white bellied lute, she set to his flute,
Tis but a wanton trick!

Thus she with her lute and he with his flute,
Held every crochet and prick,
She learned at her leisure, but paid for her pleasure,
Tis but a wanton trick!

His viol string burst, her tutor she cursed,
However she played with the stick,
From October to June she was quite out of tune,
Tis but a wanton trick!

And then she repented that e'er she consented,
To have either note or prick,
For learning so well made her belly to swell,
Tis but a wanton trick!

All maids that make trial of a lute or a viol,
Take heed how you handle the stick.
If you like not this order, come try my recorder--
Tis but a wanton trick!

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 12:46 PM

Joh9n. What about Peggy Seeger,along with other lady banjo pickers mentioned above and I was in a trio some time back and the other lad played a mean recorder,along with guitar, banjo, and mando cello

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 01:58 PM

Well, lemme see . . . there is a recorder consort that gets together and practices one evening a week at a church about nine blocks from where I live. One man plays a harpsichord, but the rest (about half of the group are men) play recorders of various sizes. I've taken an occasional whack at the recorder myself, but I really stink at it. Still trying to master Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.

For some reason, not very many people in my immediate klatch of folk-singing friends play 5-string banjo, but the one person who does is a woman. She also plays guitar, Irish harp, hurdy-gurdy, and a medieval viol of some kind. At folk festivals, I've seen quite a few female banjo players (the females are the players, not the banjos).

Is Hull a fairly small place?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:06 PM

Can't recall ever seeing a woman playing a trombone. But then you don't see that many trombones around the folk scene.

If Johm's thinking of tenor banjos he might have a point. But five-string banjos, no way. Almost the only people who know how to play them with taste as well as skill seem to be women. (Yeah, there are exceptions.) Especially Joe's neighbour Debby McClatchy.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:12 PM

John:

Does the Mudcat name "Banjo Bonnie" ring any bells? Also known as Little Neophyte, she plays excellent banjo.

A

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Peace
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:23 PM

I've never had sex with an instrument, well, not a musical instrument. I mean, there is an instrument involved with sex if one chooses to call it that I suppose. I this what y'all call thread creep?

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:28 PM

How about sex with an instrumentalist? Does that count?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:28 PM

Apparently leading banjo makers such as S.S. Stewart were designing banjos back in the 1890's for momen to play. Check out the Lady Stewart and the American princess models on Mugwumps website:Stewart Banjo Info

These were high quality instruments, somewhat smaller in size to those designed for real men!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 03:38 PM

Bill D

that song reminds me of "My Thing Is My Own" - same source.



GUEST

isn't it something DUth Boys stick their finger in to save everybody else?


Bee-dubya-ell

I'm just a little harmonica,
I want to grow up to be an Accordion,
....

no - I can't even get it to scan...

Robin

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: John Hardly
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 03:57 PM

I keep getting email solicitations for sex instruments...

...like the "jackrabbit vibrator"?

I can't figure out how someone would play old-timey, or even bluegrass music on it though.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 04:34 PM

Of course instruments have sex - what do you think shaky eggs hatch into? And where they come from??!

LTS

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 04:44 PM

I made my own shaky eggs. A few years ago, one of the egg companies started this promo where they put 5 real eggs and one plastic egg in a carton. You put the five eggs in an omlette, and flavoured it with the contents of the little plastic packet in the plastic egg.

I bought a few of these packs. I put different materials in each of the eggs, coarse, fine grains etc. Each one has a different sound quality and tone. Don't put too much in each one, or it just sounds muffled.

This post has nothing to do with sex - sorry!

But I have been told by some ladies that I can make their eggs shake...

Robin

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: PapaWhiskey
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 04:52 PM

I'm a little confused about the subject of the thread. If it's about banjos and recorders, I'm secure enough in my manhood to admit that I play a recorder. I gave the neighborhood kids music lessons using plastic recorders a while back and still have mine. It's a nice little chromatic instrument to keep in hand while browsing through songbooks. If the thread is about sex with instumentalists, well, I never met a female tuba player but I used to date a female trombone player. If you've never kissed a trombone player I highly recommend that you try it.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 05:02 PM

Dolmetsch, arguably (there's the subject for another thread) the finest English (with a name like that there's the subject for another) recorder makers are run by Dr Brian Blood. He is male. I speak not of his gender preferences but I have no reason of mannerism or behaviour to suspect that he might not be heterosexual. He is a very good classical recorder player, strictly in the classical style.

When we went down there to buy Jacqui's medieval pitch descant, (we finished up with a satinwood the sound of which could almost instantly make you cry: just so dolorous) although she was also a good player, the difference between her fiery individual style and his strict one was quite remarkable.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 05:02 PM

I have.... makes you want to take up the sousaphone.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Peace
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 05:21 PM

Well, if instruments don't have sex, we're gonna run out of instruments. Think about it: It's obvious--if there's anything at all to genetics--that violins come from cellos. You just have to look to see that. And 3/4 guitars come from full-sized guitars. And piccolos--which I never could spell--come from flutes and oboes, or something like that. This ain't rocket surgery, folks.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 06:07 PM

Or Brain Science either - Tambourines are what happens when you leave the morris bells in the same bag as the bodhrain.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Emma B
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 06:33 PM

And nobody has mentioned the late Margaret Barry - so I will!

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: GUEST,Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 06:39 PM

What? No old Hee Haw fans out there?! What about Ronnie Stoneman?   Hee Haw had an all-girl banjo band. One of the members, Cathy Barton, was declared by Roy Acuff to be his favorite banjo picker. You can get several recordings by Cathy Barton and Dave Para through Folk-Legacy records. They are superb!

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Joybell
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:11 PM

The question JOhn asked was what did we think about the fact that he had never SEEN these wonders. I predict that if you are very, very good JOhn, and we all send our strongest magic, a big band of lady banjo players and gentlemen recorder players will wake you up early on Christmas morning. Wish I was there to arrange it.
As for the sex bit - the union of a recorder and a banjo would result in something really horrible I imagine. Maybe a skin full of air with a pipe attached and a blowing tube, and a loud voice. OOOH! so that's how they came about!
(I don't actually think they're horrible at all, and some of my best friends play them).

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Sam L
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:41 PM

I had hopes for the idea. I collect odd gender differences. Like G. Carlin's observation that if you sleep on a couch, and there's a woman in the house, there will be a blanket on you when you wake up.

   Women aren't usually hi-tech audiophiles, but that probably has more to do with showy spending than with sound quality. A man who designs speakers told me he can't price them as cheap as he'd like, because the market wants to pay more.

   I've never met a woman with that peculiar guitar-shop-dude attitude.

   I knew a guy who claimed he could hear a guitar player's race. White guys can't help showing off their chops, he said. He also believed he could "feel" magnetic north, but admitted he'd never fairly tested himself.

   I've unscientifically found that if you ever tell a woman you don't care for something, she will perpetually forget it, and keep pushing it on you. But a guy will tend to make a note of it.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Robin2
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:24 PM

Ah gee, women not playing the banjo? Surely you jest! Lily Mae Ledford (The Coon Creek Girls) was playing the banjo back in the 30' and 40's, and her Granddaughter Carrie Norris is carrying on the tradition. One of the finest Appalachian banjo players here in KY I've seen, Debra Jenkins, also plays off and on with my band.

And my daughter plays the trombone, and one of our bass sub-ins is a woman, and I LOVE audio stuff for my computer.

I think sex probably works best for the wind instruments.
After all, harmonica players can both blow AND suck! (can't believe I just said that)


Robin2

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:52 PM

Not to mention the Coon Creek Girls from Renfo Valley!

"Little Birdie" has always been one of my favorite songs.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 10:09 PM

I know quite a few men who play the recorder but I don't know why.
Peggy Seeger plays a long neck banjo , brilliant.
eric

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 10:22 PM

But not during sex.

A

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: PoppaGator
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:18 PM

The frottoir, or Cajun "washboard" or rubboard, comes in male and female models.

This is an all-metal contraption specifically designed to hang around the neck and cover the torso, for use as a percussion instrument -- there's no wooden frame, and no pretense that it would ever be used for laundry purposes.

The for-men-only model is a simple sheet of die-cut corrugated sheet metal; manufacture of the girl's frottoir requires quite a bit more cutting, fitting, spot-welding, etc.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Joybell
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:11 PM

Wow! you mean like those horned ladies in Wagnerian opera, PoppaGator? I didn't know you could play those metal bras they wear.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Burke
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:33 PM

Sheila Kay Adams was my banjo teacher at Augusta this year. I'm also of the female persuasion & am at least trying to play the banjo.

We had girl who played trombone in my high school band. The director of the orchestra where I now work is a female trobonist as well.

Yeah, there are instruments that tend to be played mostly by men & others by women. There are always exceptions to the general rule, though. Banjos & recorders are not even the first instruments that would come to my mind a mostly played by one sex.

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: Cruiser
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:53 PM

Geewillikers Robin2!

At least you were brave(?) enough to say it. I probably will remember that for awhile with a brief smile the next time I play my harp (no not that kind of harp).

Subject: RE: Sex and Instruments.
From: wendyg
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:45 PM

I can be heard playing banjo on some of the tracks here. Specifically The Lark's March (banjo duet), The False Young Man, and The Gravel Walk.

There are *loads* of female banjo players, so I can only assume you don't get out much.

wg