The Female Percussionist

When you ask a browser, “Who are the best drummers?” How many women do you see? Now, what if you change the question to, “Who are the most famous drummers?” Again, how many women pop up? 

This creates a multitude of questions. Are there just fewer female percussionists? Are male drummers better? What is the cause of this uneven distribution? From personal experience, I believe that the answers to these questions stems from the grade school and high school level.

My grade school required the students to enroll in either band or choir. Before joining band, you had a set date where you could go in and try every instrument that the school was able to rent out to you. Before even entering the band room, I remember the band teacher telling me that I did not meet the requirements to become a drummer. I told her that it was truly the only instrument that I had an interest in playing, however, she was dead set about denying me. After my mother had a long talk with her, I was allowed to audition for a spot as a percussionist. After what felt like months of waiting, they announced the percussionists for the class of 2024, and to everyone’s surprise, it consisted of six girls and two guys. This was the first female heavy group that my school had ever seen. You could sense that this was not what the band director had planned and she was not shy in showing her distaste. The boys were always assigned to the snare, bass, and cymbals, while the girls were assigned the bells or marimba. After a concert where I played bass drum for the first time I can remember my band director saying, “You played it too loud,” with a smirk on her face. 

The first time I realized that this lineup of women over men was odd was in high school. The percussion director called the bass line, “The Lady Basses.” It was the first time that my high school had ever had an all-female bassline. My sophomore year of high school, I auditioned for snare drum, and was told that I was not a good fit and I should stick with the lady basses. Therefore, this name stuck. In my junior year, I decided that I wanted to audition for the tenor. After many whispers of how a freshman male would beat me for the spot, I ended up becoming the first female tenor in the last seven years. Immediately, my male tenor counterpart played down my abilities and would constantly make me second-guess my skills. My senior year, I was again threatened with losing my spot to a male freshman because he had more upper-body strength. Again, against the odds, I stayed on tenor. Not only this, but to everyone’s surprise, I was named percussion captain and was allowed to lead the whole band during the season. 

Throughout high school, our drumline noticed that we were very different from the other drumlines. Not only did we have “The Lady Basses” for two years, but we also had more females than every other band that we went up against. After becoming a tenor, I realized that several high school drumlines only had male tenors and snares. Not only this, but it was unheard of to have a female as the drumline captain. I even found myself searching for other females who played something other than the bass drum or cymbals. 

This is where I believe the lack of professional drummers comes from. Growing up, having females in percussion was unheard of, and having more females than males was insanity. Yes, it could be said that this was a preference thing, and it just happened that we had six females who wanted to hit drums, but the fact that almost every high school was the exact opposite is impossible. 

Going into the college setting, I can admit that there are many more females compared to the high school level, but I still find them to be solely on bass, cymbals, or in the pit. While ISU has some exceptions to this, the majority of other colleges seem to follow the same “gender roles” as the high school and grade school. 

The question that remains is why? 

The simplest answer would be due to the history of the instrument and it is seen as more masculine. However, the face of percussion is changing to become more inclusive to everyone. My only question would be, how long is it going to take before a woman makes that list? 

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