Drum Corps, Blind Auditions and Gender Bias in the Music World

As the season for orchestra, concert band and marching band kicks off and as players prepare for their upcoming drum corps auditions, many musicians share a huge concern: sexism and inequality in the music industry. As a fellow musician who has been playing the saxophone since the age of ten, this is also a major concern for me and I believe it should be addressed.

To start off, what is a drum & bugle corps?

Drum and bugle corps is a marching art unit that consists of percussionists and brass instrument players, along with a color guard. These groups consist of high school-college level players from several different locations and are not typically associated with any school, unlike marching bands. If you’re not a musician, you have probably seen some of these performances go viral on social media over the summer. 

I personally have no interest in auditioning for drum corps, but because I did marching band in high school and still do it in college, I know a fair share of people who are interested, have auditioned or have done drum corps. However, the experiences that a lot of my female friends have shared are much different in comparison to the experiences my male friends have had, like being told they are “too young” to be let into the group after auditioning, despite male musicians of the same age being let in just fine. 

Blind Auditions and Their Surprising Benefits

A blind audition is when the player and judge are separated by some kind of partition. This is done so the auditioner is only judging the player for their musical ability and nothing else. Invented in 1952 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, blind auditions have become a standard for just about every orchestra that also gives female musicians a better chance at landing a seat in the group.

The BSO originally created the blind audition because they noticed that there are more male musicians in their orchestra than females and were looking to change that. They found that placing a screen between the player and judge increased the chance of female musicians being able to advance in their auditions. Another way the BSO fixed their auditions to be more fair to female musicians was for every player to take their shoes off during the already blind audition, so the judge cannot tell what the gender of the player is based on what footwear they have (the sound of high heels or boots is typically associated with femininity in our society, especially in the 50s where gender fashion rules were much stricter). This way of auditioning helped women in music tremendously as they weren’t being judged based upon their gender, but their actual talent. 

Despite blind auditions being something very important and impactful, it shows that bias against female musicians is a very real and systemic issue. There is no evidence to back men being smarter or more talented than women, and there is no correlation between gender and musical talent. The true problem is not that women aren’t talented enough, it’s that they are not represented in the musical world enough. 

For more information, check these articles out:

Goldin, Claudia and Cecilia Rouse. “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of” Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians.” The American Economic Review 90.4 (2000): 715-741.

Elizabeth, J. (2024, November 27). “Now we’re letting them drum?” — The reality of female

drummers. Rock n’ Heavy. Medium.

rocknheavy.net/now-were-letting-them-drum-the-reality-of-female-drummers-6379134c

12b

Musicians Union. (2024, March 27). Musicians” census finds over half of women in music have

experienced gender discrimination. Musicians” Union. Musiciansunion.Org.Uk.

musiciansunion.org.uk/news/musicians-census-finds-over-half-of-women-in-music-have

experienced-gender-discrimination

Kontny, N. (2017, August). Assumptions – signal v. noise – medium. Signal v. Noise. Medium.

medium.com/signal-v-noise/assumptions-eb25b3524e36

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