As a child when visiting my grandparents, one of the things I always enjoyed was that it was a house full of music.  My grandmother would play anything from B.B. King to J.S. Bach.  My mother and uncles would each be playing different types of music too.  To listen to a different genre, all you had to do is walk into another room.

My uncle Mark was a gifted musician.  I remember watching him learn the cello and the violin, pounding away at the piano and organ playing either Mozart or Queen.   At times, I’d come into the living room after he had some friends over to jam, and I’d climb behind the drums (because they looked the coolest to me at the time) and try to make some sort of music without my uncle and his friends finding out.  But in reality, I just made a lot of noise.

All musical instruments seemed magical to me, but I never took any lessons as a child.  When I was 17 I bought an electric guitar, a beautiful candy-apple red Kramer and took a few lessons.  But the chords hurt my fingers and I had the concentration of a 5-year-old kid in church, so I didn't stick with it.

My love for music, however, was always as strong as it ever was.  I’d made friends with a few different local bands, and did what I could to help promote them.  From selling their t-shirts or tapes at their shows, to helping spread the word about them worldwide, that was my way of feeling apart of the band.  But even that never completely satisfied me, it was like always holding a brush over a canvas but never knowing what to do once you had some paint.  And when you talk to people and you tell them about being involved in the music scene, the first thing they ask you is if you play an instrument as well.  Too many times had I answered that question with a “no” and a pout.
 
The problem is however that a lot of women don't get the positive reinforcement that men do when taking up an instrument.

I remember going keyboard shopping with my friend Jobee who was taking piano lessons at the time and standing around in a music store for a good amount of time without being approached by one salesperson.  I went back later that week with my boyfriend at the time, and about five steps into the store we began being assaulted by salespeople.  Or, let me rephrase that, my boyfriend was approached by the salespeople, not us.

Another time, Jobee and I went into another shop because she wanted to buy a pair of drummer’s gloves.  Jobee was a petite little thing who was always cold, so she wanted to cut off the tips of the fingers on the gloves and wear them while practicing the keyboard.  When she asked the person behind the counter for them, he asked her if she was a drummer.  When she told him that she was a keyboardist and not a drummer, he acted as if she didn’t know what she was talking about.  Even if she just wanted the gloves because they looked cool, she should not have been questioned about her purchase.
 
Tiffany, who starting playing the bass this past January, ran into similar resistance when shopping for her bass amp.  Though she had walked into the music store well prepared, having researched what she wanted, she was questioned by the salesman as to if the amp was actually for her.  When she said that he was, he appeared surprised.

I myself, after pouting for years about not being able to play any instruments, picked up the bass guitar a couple months ago.  For the most part, I’ve gotten a great deal of positive support from my musician friends, but I did have one friend laugh when I told him that I was learning the bass.  Yet, my friend Rich, who also picked up the bass practically the same day as I, has received nothing but positive reinforcement.  And Todd, a guitarist friend of mine who’s been playing for over 20 years had never, EVER been questioned about his intentions when in a music store.

And it’s not just on a local level either, I remember an interview with Clarence Clemons (Springsteen saxophonist) where he had commented about how he doesn’t think that women should be in rock bands because women just ‘can’t rock’ the way men can.  (That’s funny…when I think of really rockin’ instruments; the sax is not exactly high up on my list.)

Unfortunately, women are the minority in the rock scene as far as playing goes.  And unless a whole lot of women start picking up instruments themselves, this attitude is not going to change.

Fact is though, in a store, all customers should be treated equally.  Who cares whom the item is for as long as you’re making a sale?  And if a salesperson is obvious about his prejudices then the end result could be turning a paying customer away.

My writing about how men should not be biased in regards to female musicians or female music students is basically my saying that no one should be prejudice in regards to anyone or anything.  Sex, race, religion – these are the things that fuel hatred.  Not that a woman getting snubbed in a music store can compare to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, but if it wasn’t for the fact that sometimes people make unfair judgments about others, maybe this world would be a slightly nicer place to live in.

Maybe we can start in the music stores and work our way up from there.
 

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