The Guardian (UK, 2008) reports that children learning the harp and flute are overwhelmingly female (90% and 89%, respectively) while those studying guitar and drums are disproportionately male (81% and 75%). The survey of UK music programs, by Hallam, Rogers and Creech, was first published for analysis of minority participation in music programs in 2005, according to a press release (Institute of Education, University of London, 2008).* According to the press release, some instruments do not have gender baggage: "similar proportions of boys and girls in England play the cornet, French horn, saxophone, tenor horn and African drums."
When I was five or six, my mother gave me a mandolin with the phrase "I thought this would be a good instrument for a little girl." That's sort of weird, now that I think about it, but I was a pretty, pretty princess, so that sort of thing was important to me at the time. I had the mandolin until college, but I never learned to play it. I took a few weeks of lessons right away and lost interest. The clarinet ran a very similar course, but my mother was smarter that time and rented it.
*Neither the original study ("Survey of Local Authority Music Services" 2005) or the new analysis of the old data ("Gender differences in musical instrument choice" 2008) seem to have online materials available. sorry.
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About Me
- Dan4th
- ex-activist, ex-pagan, ex-vegetarian, ex-female, post-queer blogging addict. B.S. in theatre, studying for Master's in Psych. Day job in research administration.
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8 comments:
I distinctly remember when I decided I wanted to learn to play the flute. I must have been in 1st or 2nd grade (based on my visual memory of where I was at the time). I was watching some concert on PBS, and there was a fantastic flute solo, and I thought it was really beautiful and I want to do that.
The soloist was a large, grey-bearded guy.
(Also when I got to actually choose instruments when I was in 4th grade, I said at the "fair" they had that I wanted to play flute and the lady tried to convince me that my embouchure was wrong for flute and that I should try a brass instrument instead and I said no, I want to play the flute, and she said my sound wouldn't be good, maybe for piccolo it would be ok, but then I had her - "But don't I have to learn flute first to play the piccolo?")
Interesting that those brass instruments are shown as "gender neutral" in the study. When I was in school brass instruments were definitely considered more appropriate for boys, especially for younger kids. By high school that I believe that was less true.
@naohai: It was my impression, based on talking to the conservatory students I hung out with in the 1990's, that brass instruments were generally masculine.
I'm a little baffled and pleased.
I think of flute, clarinet, and oboe as "female" instruments...like if a guy played them, they would truly catch hell.
I think that many people feel bass and drums are "male" instruments...but I've never felt that way. I play both.
Guitar I've never thought of as male or female...though thinking about it now I suppose that is more the case for acoustic guitar. When I think of electric guitar, though I have plenty of female friends who play, the stereotypical electric guitar player is a guy. I play both acoustic and electric guitar.
I also play mandolin, incidentally, which I've also never thought of as a female instrument...if anything I'd think it was for men...because of all the jazz and bluegrass history of male players.
@M-big_mistake: My mother and I were both painfully unaware of the bluegrass associations with mandolin - until we tried to get me educated on it. Everything had this "down home pickin'" flavor that we found really painful.
I think my mother really wanted me to play the lute, when it came down to it. Seriously, think virgins charming unicorns out of the woods in medieval tapestries. This was the image we both had in our heads. Sigh. Pretty pretty princess.
For what it's worth, I am a lot more into bluegrass than unicorns now.
P.S. When you say things like you were a "pretty, pretty princess"...it always baffles me.
Like some of those clothes you wore for that photo shoot a while back. I've never owned sexy female clothing. Ever.
I only started considering myself trans about five years ago...but I've always, always been a masculine "woman". I can't imagine going from one extreme to the other. It is truly fascinating.
@M_Big_mistake's P.S.: Yeah, I feel pretty inadequate about my non-standard transpath. Thanks for validating those feelings.
I don't mean that you're inadequate or anything else negative...I just am fascinated. Particularly about how hard the hard decisions must have been. I'd love to have coffee with you some day and learn all about how you got from point A to B.
Didn't mean any disrespect...all respect.
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