Music and Gender

 I remember being young and watching my sisters do band, choir, and marching band. I was inspired to play trumpet (dominantly male instrument) because I noticed many girls did not play it at all. This made me want to play the trumpet and be different. For seven years I was the only female trumpet player in my band program and for about 3 years the only female brass player entirely! 

The first difference I noticed was the boys were either more competitive, or just extremely nice. While the females mainly just enjoyed playing and kept to themselves. I mean the trumpet stereotype is your either stuck up, or your the coolest person ever. No, there is no in between. Why yes, yes I fall in the best person ever category :)

Being the only girl in the brass world at my school, I got to really observe the high school male species. I remember listening to Eric Whitacre (expected of a high school female soprano) while the boys listened to country rap? What even is that! I noticed to males have a huge tendency to play blastissimo at ALL times. Very few experiences have I met a very expressive player at that age. 

I noticed how mainly females played woodwind instruments while males filled up the percussion section. Also can we talk about how just now coming to college has been my first experience working with a female director? I’ve done many All Region and All county band clinics and never worked under any women in my middle/high school years. Yet, mainly all high school drum majors are female! Interesting!

Maybe it’s just that the band world was mainly male in my time. I see this changing, the middle school where I attended now has a female band director and she is very successful there. As I left my program, a lot of the younger brass sections became half and half. This includes the number of males that chose to play woodwind instruments over brass. 

It makes me wonder where this stereotype of “boy’s play brass” and “girl’s play woodwinds” came from. For a long time this had and still sometimes stereotype sticks. If a female played a brass instrument she was not very questioned, many saw it as “cool.” I have noticed that usually when a male plays a “less dominant” instrument he is immediately questioned on his masculinity. 

I enjoy today seeing many young music students break these norms. Some of the best clarinet performances I seen have been by male players. Women have a tendency to bring out the beautiful emotional take with brass instruments as well. 

I wonder how much talent was lost or not used to the fullest potential because of the gender stereotype in the music world.  May we continue to normalize the fact that instruments have nothing to do with gender at all. When we see a male play perhaps the violin, lets appreciate the hard work they put into it. 

Let’s do that instead of questioning and making assumptions based off just an instrument they play.