Music and Gender

When I first started band, everyone wanted to play the drums. Mostly the guys got to play them. When we were picking instruments, my teacher would tell the girls who wanted to play the drums, to think about playing other instruments like the sax and the clarinet. I know my teacher thought that girls could not play the drums. As I when on with my band classes, I saw that the clarinet and flute sections where all girls, the low brass and percussion (not including what is known as the pit section in marching band) where all guys. The rest of the sections were kind of mixed. The rest of the woodwinds where mostly girls with a few guys here and there. The high brass was also mixed, but more guys than girls. That is how it was during my high school years. When I started college, there was not much a difference. It was not till I came to converse that I really saw the “gender gap” in the musical world. During Wind Ensemble, there are no low brass members, and one percussionist. When the outside players came this year, I was so shocked. There in the clarinet section was not one but two male clarinetist. Not something I see every day.

In my family, the only other person who was even in music other than my sister and I, was my mom. My male members of the family, manly cousins was like “uga (cave man talk) me man uga me do sports uga music for uga little girls”. Now they are kicking themselves in the butt because they just found out you get way more scholarships if you can play an instrument. So the gender role in my musical life has been great now that I think about it, but it has not been for the greater good a.k.a. the teacher trying to get the female students to play, what she thought, the female instruments.