Women Trombonists

[iranzi]

Dana Douglas!
This sounds amazing!

[ghmerrill]

Brass instruments are not inherently masculine instruments, but they are seen by men as masculine instruments. It's the attitudes, not the instruments, that are masculine or feminine. Human beings don't naturally gravitate toward one instrument or another in the absence of cultural labeling and saturating the environment with artificial notions.

Now I'm mulling over what made me gravitate towards the flute when I was 18. I thought it was to provide a good double in the big band I was playing in, and sit in the front row of the pep band (directly behind the transparent shield) during hockey games -- and so avoiding flying pucks. But now I have to worry about deeper and hidden causes and motives -- particularly since it was in an environment where the male/female ratio was 32/1. Very vexing. Possibly disturbing. What was I really thinking? What was I feeling?

Otherwise, 10% does seem pretty low. But I think there's no reasonable evidence for such a prediction one way or the other -- and I'd have to think really hard to develop a predictive model of any sort for that. It would be very complicated and subject to any number of criticisms of underlying assumptions no matter what the results were. As an aside, while I was the only male flute player in a couple of college bands/orchestras, our concert/pep/marching band had a female Sousaphone player (she graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering). Decades later I would abandon woodwinds and take up the tuba. Now I have to search for a deeper meaning in that as well.

[tbdana]

It's okay. I'm used to being mocked.

[Matt K]

[...] natural [...]

how is anything "natural"?


i'd let women decide what's good or not on this issue


p.s. even that sentence is mysogynistic. it's built into the language.
i'm gonna shut up about it now

How am I showing hatred towards women by suggesting that "they" have the autonomy to decide if they do or do not want to play a low brass instrument?

There aren't male instruments and female instruments that the sexes "naturally" gravitate towards. There are certainly human attitudes about those instruments that affect who plays them and who gets jobs. Brass instruments are not inherently masculine instruments, but they are seen by men as masculine instruments. It's the attitudes, not the instruments, that are masculine or feminine.

Up to this point, I don't think anything I said is incompatible with this viewpoint.

Human beings don't naturally gravitate toward one instrument or another in the absence of cultural labeling and saturating the environment with artificial notions.

I disagree, but it's almost certainly irrelevant whether I'm right, you're right, or we're both wrong by X%. In other words, the goal shouldn't be an equal ratio of sexes, the goal should be to allow anyone to play low brass unencumbered by discrimination.

If you were a woman in the professional trombone world, I dare say you'd have a very different perspective and experience that would give you a completely different opinion.

How so?

[tbdana]

If you were a woman in the professional trombone world, I dare say you'd have a very different perspective and experience that would give you a completely different opinion.

How so?

Oh, so many ways, but I suspect you'll discount them.

Exclusion is real. You're not "one of the guys," and the group aspect is a real thing with real consequences, particularly in getting hired. There is a general assumption when encountering women playing trombone that they're not good, before ever hearing a note. In fact, men quite often express shock and surprise when discovering that a woman plays well, and there is still a tendency to discount it. That's a real and substantial problem. There is a general belief that women can't play as aggressively or as strongly as men routinely do. Women are still perceived as a novelty in trombones, and I've actually had a contractor say, "We already have a woman trombone player, why would we want two?"

Just yesterday in Tractor Supply I ran into an old L.A. studio player friend, Marni Johnson, a French horn player who broke into the studios in the 1970s. We stood and chatted about the good ol' days, but so many of the stories were about being the only woman in the section, about skepticism about women's playing ability, about being last hired and first fired, and about being ignored and excluded even sitting in the middle of the section.

There is no question that the culture is better today than it was 50 years ago, but we still have a very long way to go. Not even because men are overtly discriminatory, but mostly because so many men are simply blind to the disparity, in the same way the goldfish cannot see the water it is swimming in.

[ghmerrill]

Just yesterday in Tractor Supply I ran into an old L.A. studio player friend, ...

Wait! A woman in TRACTOR SUPPLY? What's up with THAT? Uh, hold on ... my wife's just coming in from mowing our back acreage with the tractor. (I'm not making that up. ) I need to be sure she puts the battery on charger. Our gender-defined roles here are that she operates the machinery and I repair and maintain it.

[Matt K]

How so?

Oh, so many ways, but I suspect you'll discount them.

My perspective is that we need to end discrimination, harassment, and exclusionary practices. Do you think that if I were a woman that I would want to be more discriminatory?

[ghmerrill]

Sometimes a slightly different perspective can be useful. Here's an interesting one from an area where over 90% of the musicians are women: https://harpcolumn.com/forums/topic/rea ... p-playing/

[LeTromboniste]

But, I do not think that misogyny is the exclusive explanation for why, specifically, few trombonists are women. After all, the organizations that have been mentioned (NYP, Cleveland, etc.) have women in other positions and should be exposed to the same level of discrimination. If misogyny were the explanation for 100% of the discrepancy, you would expect to see totally homogenous male representation uniformly across all instruments, which is clearly not the case.

But that is precisely the point! The discrepancy in representation between instruments shows that beyond the general societal mysoginy and discrimination, and beyond discriminatory hiring practice specific to individual institutions, there are then further cultural problems that are specifically more pronounced in the trumpet and low brass world than in some other instruments. In other words, nobody is surprised that there are no women brass players at the Vienna philharmonic, because that orchestra essentially doesn't hire women across the board. But you look at orchestras that do hire women, and for some instruments at nearly 50/50 ratios, and you still will find mostly all-male trumpet and low brass sections.

And no, it's not because there are fewer female students to start with or that women are somehow less drawn to brass instruments at first. They just get gradually pushed out between elementary school and grad school because they never fit in in the bro culture, are being told in masterclasses that they need to "play more like a man", are overall not being asked as much for projects and therefore denied the important learning and networking opportunities needed to build up the momentum and start a career, and just generally get discriminated against constantly in a myriad of small and not-so-small ways on top of the discrimination and obstacles that women generally face anyway. Then the few who remain at the end have an even harder time at the already very difficult task of breaking through and/or winning auditions (when they don't actually win auditions and then get sexually harrased or assaulted by colleagues and denied tenure because of it while their mentors and colleagues sit back and deny them support, in the most extreme cases...).

[ghmerrill]

The discrepancy in representation between instruments shows that beyond the general societal mysoginy and discrimination, and beyond discriminatory hiring practice specific to individual institutions, there are then further cultural problems that are specifically more pronounced in the trumpet and low brass world than in some other instruments.

This is not the sort of account that can be reached by means of the lumens naturalis or "clear light of reason." It takes a bit more (with some degree of complexity) to establish with any objective confidence.

[tbdana]

But that is precisely the point! The discrepancy in representation between instruments shows that beyond the general societal mysoginy and discrimination, and beyond discriminatory hiring practice specific to individual institutions, there are then further cultural problems that are specifically more pronounced in the trumpet and low brass world than in some other instruments. In other words, nobody is surprised that there are no women brass players at the Vienna philharmonic, because that orchestra essentially doesn't hire women across the board. But you look at orchestras that do hire women, and for some instruments at nearly 50/50 ratios, and you still will find mostly all-male trumpet and low brass sections.

And no, it's not because there are fewer female students to start with or that women are somehow less drawn to brass instruments at first. They just get gradually pushed out between elementary school and grad school because they never fit in in the bro culture, are being told in masterclasses that they need to "play more like a man", are overall not being asked as much for projects and therefore denied the important learning and networking opportunities needed to build up the momentum and start a career, and just generally get discriminated against constantly in a myriad of small and not-so-small ways on top of the discrimination and obstacles that women generally face anyway. Then the few who remain at the end have an even harder time at the already very difficult task of breaking through and/or winning auditions (when they don't actually win auditions and then get sexually harrased or assaulted by colleagues and denied tenure because of it while their mentors and colleagues sit back and deny them support, in the most extreme cases...).

[iranzi]

If you were a woman in the professional trombone world, I dare say you'd have a very different perspective and experience that would give you a completely different opinion.

How so?

that's a tough one. one would have to spend some time making a living inside professional trombone world disguised as a woman.
But mainly, i try to offer respect to what the people on the receiving end are saying.

How am I showing hatred towards women by suggesting that "they" have the autonomy to decide if they do or do not want to play a low brass instrument?

Not you, i meant my own sentence: I inadvertently used an expression i shouldn't have.

[LeTromboniste]

The discrepancy in representation between instruments shows that beyond the general societal mysoginy and discrimination, and beyond discriminatory hiring practice specific to individual institutions, there are then further cultural problems that are specifically more pronounced in the trumpet and low brass world than in some other instruments.

This is not the sort of account that can be reached by means of the lumens naturalis or "clear light of reason." It takes a bit more (with some degree of complexity) to establish with any objective confidence.

Ok then, here's something. People who we know for fact are being marginalised and discriminated against in society in general are telling us they face even more marginalization in this field, and they'll describe all kinds of ways in which its happening. Believe them. Just believe them, it's that simple. If you're going to choose not to believe them, then maybe ask yourself if you're not maybe a part of the problem. Maybe ask yourself why you are not seeing the problem that everyone affected says there is.

And then if you still choose not to believe them, and choose to believe that the situation is not actually what the very people who are living that situation are telling us it is, then please offer your explanation for why women, and generally people who are not straight cis men, are essentially absent from the orchestral world, yet they are somehow way more represented in trombone scenes where the macho attitude and bro culture is less present, more represented in the student bodies of conservatories and universities, more represented among amateur players. Why are they absent in the orchestral world when women who play other instruments are not absent to the same degree. Why they are systematically being cut in preliminary and first rounds of competition and we see all-male or almost all-male finalist pools even when the ratio is close to 50/50 in applicants or first round participants. And why they'll all tell you stories about countless ways in which they felt marginalized. Please offer your alternative reasons for why all of that is happening, if it's not actually because marginalization is truly happening.

[LeTromboniste]

The discrepancy in representation between instruments shows that beyond the general societal mysoginy and discrimination, and beyond discriminatory hiring practice specific to individual institutions, there are then further cultural problems that are specifically more pronounced in the trumpet and low brass world than in some other instruments.

This is not the sort of account that can be reached by means of the lumens naturalis or "clear light of reason." It takes a bit more (with some degree of complexity) to establish with any objective confidence.

Also, not for nothing, adopting a posture of higher rational detachment and objectivity, implying irrationality in issues being raised with the status quo, is literally one of the most classic tropes of how the perspectives of marginalised people are silenced.

[iranzi]

deleted

[Matt K]

And no, it's not because there are fewer female students to start with or that women are somehow less drawn to brass instruments at first. They just get gradually pushed out between elementary school and grad school because they never fit in in the bro culture, are being told in masterclasses that they need to "play more like a man", are overall not being asked as much for projects and therefore denied the important learning and networking opportunities needed to build up the momentum and start a career, and just generally get discriminated against constantly in a myriad of small and not-so-small ways on top of the discrimination and obstacles that women generally face anyway. Then the few who remain at the end have an even harder time at the already very difficult task of breaking through and/or winning auditions (when they don't actually win auditions and then get sexually harrased or assaulted by colleagues and denied tenure because of it while their mentors and colleagues sit back and deny them support, in the most extreme cases...).

I don't deny any of those. I am merely saying this is not exclusively the cause, and whether the "natural" rate is 99%, 50%, or 10% is irrelevant if those factors go away, and I would very much like for all of those factors disappear forever.

If trombone playing were the next Stanley Cup fad of middle-aged soccer moms and I were among the 1% of men who played trombone, I would be ecstatic.

[ghmerrill]

Ok then, here's something. People who we know for fact are being marginalised and discriminated against in society in general are telling us they face even more marginalization in this field, and they'll describe all kinds of ways in which its happening.

Um, yes. This is how science works. You start from the phenomena and then attempt to find generalizations and theories that explain the phenomena. Then you thoroughly test those theories, including testing them against alternative theories. All of this requires careful and difficult work so that you don't end up with bogus theories just because they fit what you might want to believe or because you've used imprecise data or unreliable inferential methods. Leaping to jargon-laden generalizations expressed in one or two sentences does not further our understanding of the phenomena or their explanation or finding a solution to a problem that everyone may agree exists.

You can't make this up (or at least I'm not), but ... As I was typing the above, my wife came into our home office and said (exact quote) "Well, I'll tell you, women are a lot different from men. That's something I've learned in life. That's all I've got to say." Then she turned and exited.

This was not in any particular context, and she's not remotely aware that I'm participating in this thread or anything like it. This is a very accomplished and successful woman with a Ph.D., prior careers in both academia and business/industry (having taught medical ethics in a medical school and later moved on to developing and managing documentation and user interface departments in industry), and a history of managing female-dominated departments in business. She now devotes volunteer time to teaching English to mixed male/female classes of immigrants. She's encountered her share of sex discrimination. Having been married for almost 50 years and having a similarly accomplished and experienced daughter now in her 40s, I have to agree. Sex/gender-based differences exist, sometimes the differences are related to social phenomena that we observe. Determining the details of that is not a matter of just "looking and seeing" in some immediate way. Even Wittgenstein knew that.

Believe them. Just believe them, it's that simple.
...

... posture of higher rational detachment and objectivity, implying irrationality in issues being raised with the status quo, is literally one of the most classic tropes of how the perspectives of marginalised people are silenced.

You think I don't believe them? Just because I don't want to fall for some abbreviated jargon-laden blather that doesn't advance our understanding of anything, and obfuscates the real problem through its unintelligible simplicity? Real problems require real solutions. You can't jargon your way out of them.

[iranzi]

Emily White - mentioned already in this thread by LeTromboniste. Then mbarbier brought her to my attention: viewtopic.php?p=256262#p256262.




so interesting that the sackbut bell shape is so similar to various non-western metal lip-reed instruments...

[iranzi]

that 2d piece, the solo — i think i can just about make it work on my trombone too… super excited to give it a go! (my ears are not "in tune" to start with but i'm hearing some notes in this piece are not where the'd normally be — that big-room reverb helps too. don't know what it is, a just intonation perhaps? )

Will post a recording when it's done, not in this thread of course, somewheres else (unless cold feet... )

[Posaunus]

Emily White - mentioned already in this thread by LeTromboniste (who else?).

Nice. Musical.

[iranzi]

Dana Douglas!
This sounds amazing!

I’m officially on holiday (half term break), so spent the whole day trawling through jazz trombone recordings, trying to make a representative list of my ideal trombone sound/style. To get an idea of a direction for myself...

Bothered me that the tracks i chose were all pre-1980.
i don’t really believe in jazz as a living tradition after that date (except for those musicians who matured in an earlier jazz milieu and carried on. many still do. Or those who learned from & worked with them. I see them as survivors of a great vanishing civilization).
But I realise now (and it's obvious) — this doesn’t mean that younger musicians stopped loving it and pursuing it and achieving greatness. Jazz survives, just in a different guise. It's a completely different field with different learning and performing institutions. But the players are what makes the whole thing worthwhile. Just as it ever was.

So after listening many times to a shortlist of all my bestest best from the yesteryear, i played 'Body And Soul' by Dana Douglas, just to get a bit of perspective. Immediately became obvious to me that if jazz was still alive and well (the way it once was, as i heard told), with a player like that it would've been a much greater place — i'm sure of this now; and this thread is further proof: with all the amazing women jazz trombonists currently working, playing...
The "good old days" weren't all that fantastic, even in jazz history. That was my main takeaway from this whole exercise. (and the present day in jazz history — somebody better positioned than me could perhaps give it a fair assesment)
all of this may be useless to many readers: revisionist history and private epiphany — way too subjective, i realise that.
my problem is all my trombone schooling comes from recordings, not from hearing it up close. Need to fix this asap

[iranzi]

Melba Liston 'My Reverie'
Quincy Jones Band, Switzerland, 1960


microphone levels seem overloaded a bit. who can tell what mouthpiece she's using? or which King trombone?

this is a great video- two concerts back to back
(just in case, this swiss version of 'My Reverie' from 1:04:45)

Really amazing that there are TWO women in the band: Melba Liston and pianist Patricia Bown! Highly irregular...
And before Prince* started doing the same, anybody else employed women in popular music in such roles?

also on albums "The Quintessence" and "The Birth Of A Band" (1959-1961)

RIP Quincy Jones

PB.jpg

________
thank you A.B. for the reminder

[StephenK]

Emily White - mentioned already in this thread by LeTromboniste. Then mbarbier brought her to my attention

She did a recital and workshop on sackbut last week at the BTS festival at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Two very modern pieces, one a long piece employing extended techniques. She was amazing!

[Posaunus]

Melba Liston 'My Reverie'
Quincy Jones Band, Switzerland, 1960

Who can tell what mouthpiece she's using? or which King trombone?

King 2B trombone; King M21 mouthpiece. All factory stock in 1960.
Perhaps even with a coffin case.

RIP Quincy Jones

[Doug Elliott]

Melba Liston 'My Reverie'
Quincy Jones Band, Switzerland, 1960

Who can tell what mouthpiece she's using? or which King trombone?

King 2B trombone; King M21 mouthpiece. All factory stock in 1960.
Perhaps even with a coffin case.

RIP Quincy Jones

Not a King M21. I have a mouthpiece identical to what she's using, but I don't know what it is, it has no maker's name or number but it does have decorative knurling.

[iranzi]

Emily White - mentioned already in this thread by LeTromboniste. Then mbarbier brought her to my attention

She did a recital and workshop on sackbut last week at the BTS festival at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Two very modern pieces, one a long piece employing extended techniques. She was amazing!

I'd have loved to be there! Where do you find advance info about an event like this?

King 2B trombone; King M21 mouthpiece. All factory stock in 1960.
Perhaps even with a coffin case.

RIP Quincy Jones

Not a King M21. I have a mouthpiece identical to what she's using, but I don't know what it is, it has no maker's name or number but it does have decorative knurling.

guys & gals you are really amazing on here! (forgive this spontaneous outburst)

[StephenK]

techniques. She was amazing!
I'd have loved to be there! Where do you find advance info about an event like this

Simple answer: join BTS. They also post in FB etc, but not everyone chooses that. The 2 day festival is biannual, and my first time. But was a great event. But there are other events, eg a play day last week in central London.
You don't have to be a member to go to events.

[Posaunus]

King 2B trombone; King M21 mouthpiece. All factory stock in 1960.
Perhaps even with a coffin case.

Not a King M21. I have a mouthpiece identical to what she's using, but I don't know what it is, it has no maker's name or number but it does have decorative knurling.

Here's a photo of my King M21 mouthpiece, that came with my 1958 King 2B.
Looks similar to Melba's (grooved rim), but perhaps the external flare on hers is more abrupt.

[iranzi]

Shannon Barnett 'Hype'

[iranzi]

Christiane Bopp 'Two Days Before'
on Jean Lapouge album "Des enfants"