Kol Isha/tzniut applied to instrumentalists?

[Sandra Layman <sandralayman...>]

Before we completely wrap the kol ishah issue up (ha! when have we ever?),
I'd like to ask about a tangent that I don't believe has been discussed on
this list -- KI (or a related interpretation of tzniut - modesty) as applied
to the playing or visibility of female instrumentalists.

Some time ago I played (violin) at a frum wedding. (If it's relevant, one of
the couple was Ashkenazi and one Sephardi.) I was one of a couple of local
musicians hired to play together with four musicians associated with a big
NYC-area Orthodox wedding band who were flown into town.

It happened that I was the only woman in the band. I did no singing, and I
was covered from neck to foot. (I usually am, by the way, as I hate to
frighten small children at my age. ;o)

At a point when the violin wasn't needed, I happened to be hanging out near
the bandstand holding my fiddle case. A very nice couple came up to me, and
the woman said something complimentary about my playing and then said, "But
how do you get away with it?" At first I thought that was just a
rhetorically complimentary question, something like "where'dya get those
peepers?" But it turned out that she was seriously wondering how a woman
"got away with" playing with the band.

I had never heard before that an *instrumentalist's* "voice" (or presence?)
might be an issue, so I filed this experience away with a question mark.

However, a few months ago I read a remark made by Alicia Svigals:

from: http://www.thejewishweek.com/bottom/specialcontent.php3?artid=623
<<as a female musician, I have to contend with kol isha, which has
occasionally meant playing on the other side of a mechitza from the rest of
the band, a bit of a musical challenge. >>

OK, so maybe this isn't so much of a kol isha issue as an interpretation of
tzniut in general. In what community might a "mixed" band be seen as a
problem, even where the woman isn't singing, and what is the halachic
interpretation invoked there?

Have any other female instrumentalists out there encountered this attitude
or situation? (Oh, and is there something about a fiddle that's more
"provocative" than other instruments?)

Thanks.

Sandra
www.sandralayman.com


---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+