I'm so glad you posted this because it is so relevant to my life right now. I am studying Women's & Gender Studies and Music, and in my Music History classes we always talk about the Feminist Music Theory and the construction of gender within classical music. And also the roles of women in music culture (traditionally the womens' role was to entertain, but not receive money - that was the man's job). When I was in my High School Marching Band, two out of three tuba players were girls... but it still was not very common. Moreover, when I was 10 I started playing the Clarinet because I thought it was the instrument that the "girly girls" played... but I wish I hadn't fallen into that trap. If I actually liked the way the clarinet sounds then maybe I wouldn't be so bitter about it. Lastly, I would like to plug-in how awesome the Girls' Rock Camps for Girls are when trying to empower girls using music. They throw all gender norms in the trash and teach these girls how to play Rock 'n roll, how to rock out on the drums, how to DJ, and so much more stuff that girls traditionally couldn't do.

I would also like to point out that the 2 girls who played tuba, the 1 girl who played the drum kit in pep band, and the one guy who played flute, they were all queer. I wonder if our band director used their sexuality as a way of justifying why it was okay for them to stray from gender norms, while all the other girls were encouraged to play the Clarinet and Flute. In my Sexuality and gender Theory class we read an article about how people used to view lesbians as men in women's bodies and vice versa.
Or maybe it was some sort of coincidence that it was these students who chose to play these instruments to empower themselves from the restrictive gender norms. Being openly queer in High School, they were a little ahead of the game in terms of the rest of us who weren't ready to empower ourselves yet.
OR maybe i'm just looking way too deep, and really they just liked the way the TUBA sounded!

Woo! I played the tuba in high school. And I'm only 5'2" and pretty girly.

I played the tuba in the school band and I'm straight. I rocked. And, I dated the baritone player and a couple of the trombone players. There weren't a lot of girls outside the flute and clarinet sections so I didn't have any competition in my corner of the band.

Seriously though - that was in the early 80s and absolutely no one pointed out that it might be odd that a girl played the tuba. It's the instrument I chose because I found it easiest to play. Plus, I was the only one, so I got to shine a little.

It was more my ego than my gender that determined what instrument I played.

Don't forget the great Patti Lupone:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/16/arts/Tuba.jpg

Nice! Way to go, Emma!

I would point out that my friend played trombone in high school while I played clarinet, and she is "girlier" than I am.

And don't diss clarinets! If you wanna go untraditional, you could always play the bass clarinet, or the E-flat, or the contralto (or whatever its called). Those are pretty awesome.

It always seemed to me that the trumpet section was the most co-ed.

Sorry if it seemed as though I was bashing on Clarinets. I just don't personally enjoy playing the Bb Clarinet because it doesn't sound good to MY ears and the reed thing hurts my teeth. But good for you if you enjoy it! I was trying to say that if I personally enjoyed playing the Clarinet then I wouldn't be so bitter about patriarchy influencing me to play it. Also, I thought about playing Bass Clarinet but I think the vibrations of the reed on that would hurt my teeth even more.

That is an awesome post. Thanks for the link!

At my school we chose our instruments in 6th grade. I remember wanting to play drums so badly and when it was my turn to sit down with the music teacher and chose my instrument I told him I wanted to play drums. He told me that drums were for boys and I needed to choose something else.

I so wish I had been the strong feminist I am now in the 6th grade. I would have told him where to shove his "girl instruments". Instead I chose clarinet and played my second choice all through high school.

Ravenfire~
Only for the boys?!?! That's insane! I was the only female in the percussion section in my band for a couple of years, until one of my friends switched from trumpet to percussion.

I had a lot of fun crashing symbols and hitting the bass drum, and I'm really sorry you were forced to miss out on that! :^(

"Chicken Soup for the Feminist Soul" anyone? Certainly, THAT'S missing for B&N!

I started out playing clarinet, but switched to trumpet for the last 3 yrs of high school. I even made 1st chair with the trumpet.

There was a one boy who played flute for a while. He was a new kid in school (having moved from a much larger school) and he was teased about it so much he quit band entirely after a few months. It was sad, other than playing flute there was nothing stereotypically feminine about him. He was a big, muscular guy, played football, straight (we dated a bit), but other boys couldn't let the flute playing go. Even some girls gave him weird looks.

I played the tuba from 6th grade to 8th. I had a lot of fun, it was nice I got to sit in the back of band class with all the stoner guys who played the drums and talk since the teacher couldn't hear us.
Although I had to give it up in high school, you could only do choir or band and I'm a much better singer than tuba player (although that isn't saying much, I was never very good) but the band teacher recruited me pretty hard.
All the band teachers I ever had (only 3) were all very excited that someone, anyone, wanted to play the tuba regardless of gender.

The horn line breakdown from my last (sob) year of high-school marching band:

Two tubas, one male, one female
Two tenor saxes, both female
One trombone, female
One baritone, male
Three trumpets, two male, one female
Four altos, two male, two female
One piccolo, male

So that actually evened out pretty well. Our band is so tiny that no one ever graduates playing their original instrument -- instead of keeping stray flutes and clarinets and disproportionately giant trumpet sections and letting us suck, every year the director just reassigns as many instruments and parts as necessary to suit whatever the show is. It's done wonders for the gender diversity of the horn line. Seriously, I recommend it. Experience a decade-long decrease in the number of people willing to try marching band, realize that in a few years half your current band will have graduated, panic, and try to come up with a quick solution. Suddenly the issues with moving your piccolo player onto tuba will seem oddly superficial.

Of course, those problems don't really come up in percussion, so that takes longer... and colorguard is for girls and gay guys, as always. But onward and upward, feminists!

Before the Boehm flute came into universal use, the flute was an almost exclusively male-played instrument. It was difficult for women with small to medium sized hands to make the reach on a simple-system flute, and the amount of air required to push sound out of a wooden flute (as there is much more resistance than a metal one) was considered unfeminine. In some areas, the flute was also thought to make players loosen their inhibitions, possibly because of the lightheadedness that sometimes accompanies playing. In types of music that still use simple-system flutes, it remains a very male-heavy population of players. Kind of funny how in just decades the flute went from stereotypically a male instrument to a female one.

That is so awesome. I was never explicitly told girls play this and boys play that but I played the flute (by choice - I thought it sounded pretty) and I thought it was odd when I saw a girl with anything brass in fourth grade when I started band. In middle school you saw a handful of girls on brass, and in high school it increased, especially as wind players were encouraged to branch out to lesser-played instruments (I had a friend attempt to switch from flute to bassoon). But when I got to college marching band (oh yeah, I stuck with it) there were a few sections that were one sex dominated but a lot of previously male dominated instruments (sousa, trombone, trumpet, etc) had a mix. Drumline was pretty sexist though. The only girls were cymbals, which are kind of the unspoken "we let you in but you're not really good enough for a 'real' drum" instrument. I think there was one female snare my senior year but they couldn't exclude her because she was REALLY good.

I will always be a band geek. And whenever someone makes fun of me for it I say "well fuck you, it got me a trip to China." Which is true :)

I was in school band 7-8 years ago. I played clarinet and then trumpet. There was never an explicit influence of gender stereotypes but for some reason only boys played drums and almost only girls played clarinet and flute. But except for drums girls played anything so seems like another case where girls start doing anything while boys stick to stereotypically boy things.

In my band the cymbals were mostly people who sucked at their original instruments, or just didn't feel like trying, and so switched.

Wow, Misspelled, that is small. My band had 200+ members. About a quarter of that were trumpets. Bleh.

I told my sister she should play percussion, as there were so few girls, but she wanted to "follow tradition" (My mom, two aunts, and I all played clarinet).

I have been in band for the past ten years and I find this really interesting. I actually started out on percussion, but switched to flute. When you played percussion at my school you had to carry this ten-pound bell set to school everyday and it was such a pain in the ass!

I was actually really excited when I got to college band and saw a ton of awesome ladies playing brass instruments, because it was honestly not that common in my high school. And I sent this link to two of my favorite female tuba-playing friends. :) Heh.

What an awesome article!

I started playing double bass in sixth grade, and even though there were other female bassists in my school, I always received sexist comments when I had to carry it around like, "Aren't you too small for that? or "Shouldn't a girl like your play the piccolo?"

Ten years later, I still play and always encourage younger girls to play whatever instrument they want, regardless of its sex stereotype.

Go women musicians!