Music and Gender

I was the only girl in my 6^th grade band class to play the saxophone. When I was trying to decide what instrument I wanted to play, I never thought to myself “I want to be the only girl in my section.” I just knew I didn’t want to play a brass instrument because I wasn’t too keen on buzzing my lips, I didn’t want to play flute because it was just too girly for me, and I’m not exactly sure why, but the clarinet just wasn’t my thing.

Pretty much every time I tell someone I play the saxophone, I get the response “Really? Why don’t you play flute instead?” Even now, when I tell people I’m a music major at Converse College, they ask “Oh, are you a singer?” Never has anyone who doesn’t know me guessed what instrument I play on the first try. Or even the 4^th try.

Every time I went to try out for our Greenville All-County Band, I was the only girl to try out on tenor saxophone. Every audition I went to seemed to follow the same pattern – the guys in the hallway would glance around the room sizing up their opponents. I would always catch little murmurs here and there whenever someone would leave their audition and the next guy would go in. Some guys seemed to be more intimidating than others, and a few of them were too cocky to even admit they had any competition at all. However, none of them seemed too worried about the 5 foot 1 girl trying out. Yet every year I tried out for County Band, I placed in either 1st or 2^nd chair. It took a few years for them to realize who their real competition was, but a few of them caught on. My junior year in high school, which was the last year I tried out, the 1^st chair tenor saxophone was a senior that I had beaten the two previous years. This time, I was 2^nd chair. He walked up to me at the clinic right before our concert and said “I finally beat you!” Even though I’m typically not the most competitive person you’ll ever meet, I did enjoy showing up a bunch of arrogant high school guys.

However male or female-dominated an instrument might be, I’ve seen plenty of exceptions to these rules other than just myself. When I was in 7^th grade, the two largest boys in the 6^th grade played flute in their band class, and they were better than all the girls. My Senior year in high school, though the alto saxophone section still consisted of mostly guys, two twin girls and I made up the low saxophones – one of them playing tenor with me and the other bari. The year before I joined marching band, our band had a girl who played sousaphone – definitely not an instrument that too many of us are brave enough to march.