Klarinet Archive - Posting 000885.txt from 2000/04

From: JMarioneau@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] Music and gender (was: Music and Academic Achievement)
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:58:16 -0400

In my high school band (back in hte '60's), we had an unusual situation. All
of the clarinet players in the band (a large band at a large school) were
guys except for one girl who could not play very well. We would go to
All-Region band tryouts and see a lot of girls playing clarinet from other
schools. We would tell the girls "clarinet is a boy's instrument. Girls
don't play clarinet." Our school had a really strong clarinet section and
there were some guys from some of the other schools who were also really good
players, so the top 2/3 of the All-Region band was guys. That further
confirmed in our small adlescent minds that clarinet was a boys instrument.
Of course we would go back home and tell our band director, who was also a
clarinet player, that we wanted to move to one of the other schools because
there were girls playing clarinet at those schools and we asked why we didn't
have girls playing clarinet. (We said they smelled so nice and were so
pretty. They also liked being around the boys.) THEN when I made the
All-State band, there were girls up there who taught me by the way they
played that clarinet was NOT just a boy's instrument. (Lots of good players
who were GIRLS!) Then my freshman year in college, another freshman named
Sally, who was ahead of me at All-State just wiped me out and there was no
way I would ever be better than her. Did I get an education or what?
James

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