There is an article on the BBC website today about why the musical instruments that a child will choose to play are heavily influenced by their gender. So the top instruments for boys are: electric/bass guitar (81%), tuba (775) and drums (75%). For girls the list is harp (90%), flute (89%) and voice (80%). To be clear that doesn’t mean that 90% of girls take up the harp but that 90% of harpists are girls.
I have two boys both of whom take music lessons and guess which instruments they play, yep the guitar and the drums – ours is not a quiet household! If you want to know why the different genders are drawn to the various instruments then you need to read the article. I have been thinking back to what influenced our boys to choose the instruments they did – I know that there was no pressure from myself or their mum to go with what they chose – certainly where the drums were concerned! I wonder if our choice of music had an impact at all. We listen almost exclusively to modern rock/pop and the boys will have had little or no exposure of classical music and therefore the instruments. Or perhaps it could just have been me wanting the boys to achieve what I never did and become the next Eric or Phil.