Gotcha !!! Yep you are very right. It's pretty much jump on the roller coaster and see where the ride takes ya

Hi Bill,
not to worry. If it concerned me I'd put a Mrs in front. Mrs Rikki's Bears.
Not very musical sounding, but the bear hobby preceeded the music hobby on the internet.

I'm actually in Australia, so thought it might have been unique to here. ( ratio of men to women keyboard players)

The music store owner used to let me tag along to some of the trade shows if keyboards were involved. No females attended.

There was a Roland user group that I attended for a couple of years , 40 males, one wife ( who tagged along) & me.

Basically there was no shortage of female musicians in the shop. Downstairs where they sold sheet music , violins, flutes etc plenty of female customers,& a number of female piano teachers. Upstairs in the hi tech area, it was pretty much a male's domain.

A lot of the keyboard players I've chatted to over the years on various forums have come from an organ background. Sold the organ & bought a keyboard. Maybe that's got something to do with it? Maybe more men than women played organs also??

To me the transition from organ to keyboard seems more natural than from piano to keyboard.
The piano style I'd been used to was arpeggiated left hand. Doesn't work on a keyboard. Took me quite a while to get used to playing full left hand chords.

best wishes
Rikki

If I had to guess why many just read and don't "respond," it might be because they haven't learned to type as well as the rest of us. I'm sure there are many who might fit into that category.

Lucky

I've been thinking about this topic since Bill first posted it.

In my own experiences, having had a very colorful dating life when I was younger, I found every lady I ever went out with had absolutely no interest in music (other than listening to it on the radio) and no interest in my career as a musician. Not even an attempt at it. Even when they knew my whole life was about making music. Zilch, nada, nothing! I've always had to carry everything myself.

I never gave it much thought until this topic appeared. Sure I know lady musicians and vocalists but as I think about it, they seem to be only in it for the money or for vanity reasons. There's not one I know does it purely for the sake of making great music.

Even in the music stores, I only remember seeing women as, what I call, "tag-a-longs" with hubby or their boy friends.

Now, this is not a condemnation of the female gender. Just my own observations about me and women and music. Also, I don't rule out that it could be geographical. But this is how it is in my neck of the woods.

Lucky

Mostly bumping this thread because I felt the conversation wasn't over.

Maybe I was wrong, I hoped some of the other women would continue the dialogue.

Perhaps us guys are more chatty than the women are, lol...



------------------
Bill in Dayton

Personally, I think there are fewer women in professional music because it is an insane business to be in! Only men are stupid enough to think it ought to be a career...

Women are more practical than us... Maybe it's something to do with knowing they are finally responsible for raising children, and can easily see this isn't easy if you are out playing in clubs all night every night. I know of a few women that have succeeded in this, but I also know of many that either never got into it, stayed with teaching for a living (steadier pay and sensible hours) or got out of the biz altogether.

Men tend to be more irresponsible, and what better profession for that type than music?

I agree with those comments in terms of playing out, but not sure that really drills down on the premise of this thread.

C'mon ladies...participate....

Please!

------------------
Bill in Dayton

Thing is, Bill, most ladies learned the piano. And still continue to play it. Only some people, mostly men, it seems, want to play in a full band, and the arranger is the way to replicate that sound. After all, it's mostly a guy thing to go 'Let's form a band... hot chicks and all we can drink!' The arranger helps many to give themselves the sound of having done that, even if they didn't actually do it in reality...

But if playing in a band wasn't on your to do list (as many women feel, I think), why would you play something that sounded like you had?

Women don't seem to have the ego that guys do. I see all too many posts here explaining that some play arrangers because they couldn't get along with a real band, it always seems to be the story that everyone ELSE in the band was a slacker, was late, couldn't learn new tunes, yada yada yada... Personally, I don't buy it. I just think an arranger flatters the ego because you can be as bad as it gets, and the arranger never writes on a forum somewhere how bad YOU are (you in the general plural sense, that is!) and puts down your playing!

But women that WANT to play with a band generally DO play with a band. But many men just like to pretend they are playing in one

Very interesting and insightful, Diki. I've always wanted to perform/play in a band. The bands I have played in have never had aspirations of stardom and were never bigger than a quartet. I was always a small fish in a small pond. The one big chance I had came at 17, but I was too naive and innocent to give into the urge. Judging by what happened to many of those one-hit wonders, I'm glad I stayed in the little pond.

As for women players, I guees I agree that their aspirations and drive are definitely in a different gear. I played with a woman singer who, all of a sudden, decided she no longer wanted to sing the lyrics and do the jobs. She just picked up and stopped singing. Even her husband can't coax her into singing with his garage duo. She has the voice of an angel and sings as effortlessly as I've ever heard. She just has a different drive mechanism.

This all seems to suggest that the sexes are hard-wired differently. Vive la difference!