Physical anthropology of orchestral musicians: jocks, not nerds

It's been a very long time since I got to see a professional orchestra IRL, probably the first time in adulthood. And in a Roaring Twenties picture palace, no less, where I could see them fairly well.

I was simply amazed at how corporeal their body types are -- perhaps not surprising if you think of playing a musical instrument as a kinesthetic activity, but I don't think most people do. And if they do, they don't think of a symphony orchestra as "that kind" of musical performance -- so much more brainy, therefore the performers should look the part, right?

All the women were butt women, not boob women -- and not just like they had relatively more around back than up front, we're talking bubbles and thighs so thicc you couldn't help but notice them from 50 feet away. I thought it was a group of gymnasts, dancers, shot-putters, and field hockey players. They were built like jocks, not nerds.

Some were more heavy-set, some more slender, but all were butt people. The strings section was more corporeal than the brass or woodwind section -- bigger butts, more corpulent bodies overall. Still, even the wispy French horn player was conspicuously bending over to arrange things on her chair, with her back to the audience, just like the butt girls in high school bend over their desks to get attention from boys (or the hot guy teacher).

I attribute that difference to how physical the activity is -- strings involve larger / longer motion of the limbs, namely the arm used for bowing. Brass and woodwind motor activity is more fine than gross, you can barely see them moving around at all.

I didn't notice any big difference within the strings section, as though the ones with a cello between their legs had to have more developed bodies than the violinists, or as though the upright bass players needed more leg & butt muscle to put into their standing activity. All of them have the same range of gross motor activity, i.e. their dominant arm that's bowing. Sitting vs. standing doesn't involve motion, and neither does opening vs. closing your legs while sitting.

Naturally the harpist was a meaty butt woman -- that instrument is huge, and requires full extension and contraction of both arms. While executing a glissando, she looks like one of those women who can start a pull-cord lawnmower. I'm guessing the women who play a lyre, which fits on your lap, don't look like they hang out at the squat rack in the gym.

I couldn't help but think of a certain WASP-y Twitter persona who mentioned how much she wanted to learn the harp, and also mentions her weightlifting activities and being a dumptruck ass-haver, all of which are out-of-place on the cerebral platform. (Except for being a Millennial, she'd fit in better with the TikTok accounts.) I won't name her because she probably blushes easily, this is just to provide further confirmation of the correlation. She would stand out as the blonde in the orchestra, though, so maybe she would opt for small cozy recitals, as blondes are evidently more prone to stage-fright.

The guys were similar to their female counterparts in the section, with a fair share of the cellists and bass players -- and the conductor himself -- having pot bellies, while the flautist looked like a twink. This is the only respectable profession that suits fat people.

Hardly any blondes, and this is the Midwest, so there's an ample supply of them in the general population. At least one fiery redhead, although I couldn't make out some of those toward the back, so there could have been another here or there. Blonde hair reflects a recent domestication event in Europe, so brown and red-haired Europeans are the wilder back-to-nature type. Neanderthals had red hair, too. I'll bet that, just like the case with popular music, the elite orchestral musicians in Sweden are way more brunette than the highly-blonde population at large.

Music is inextricably linked with dance, and both of those activities are kinesthetic and put us back in touch with our grug-brain past. Even the forms of it that are intended for -- and performed by -- an elite stratum of society, and are more graceful than lumbering, reflect the animal side of human nature, not the cogitating symbol-manipulating side.

The symphony and the ballet are ways for the modern commercial / financial elite, who are supposed to suppress their brute ancestry, to still indulge their animality -- on occasion, and provided it has the all-important gracefulness to keep the libido from getting out of control once it's started up.

To end on, after figuring out who was present, I was struck by who therefore was absent -- skinny queens, big-naturals, nerds, and all the other people who populate 95% of online platforms. Specifically, the type who if they do make or listen to music, it's always something with minimal musicianship behind it, and never danceable / moshable / headbangable -- indie, punk, lyrics-heavy rap (as opposed to crunk), etc.

Who also makes up 95% of music critics at any media outlet? Yep, the same two-left-feet-having cerebral type who sneer at fat people (anyone with a BMI over 20) as morally unclean and creatively bereft. So delusional -- but what else would you expect from people who are literally lost in their own thoughts for their entire lives?