I have taught drums to a little over 3,000 private students in my long career as a teacher.

I live in a very , very liberal area, Santa Cruz, California and 15 years ago, my students were running
about 40%/60% women to men, but I have to say that sadly, in the past 5 years the number of
women and girl drum students has dwindled precariously.

It's funny, but it seems like many of the advances in feminism from the 60's and 70's have really eroded
in the past 10 years in the United States (at least on the Left Coast where I live).

I think the reason there are fewer drum students , however, is sexual acculturation and not biologically based.

There is also a terrible misperception that drumming has to do with strength when in fact, very much like most
martial arts, it doesn't have nearly as much to do with strength as it does with flexibility and the speed that accrues
when we are very, very loose.

You know that cliche of seeing a great drummer , "He/She makes it look effortless"?

That's because , once you get good at it, It IS effortless.

What I've found, though, is that because of acculturation, young women (particularly more self concious young teenage girls)
have a hard time doing things that are loud and that attract attention.

By the same token, I find that stereotypically, young teenage boys (and sometimes up until there mid-20s) have a really hard time
playing sensitively and dynamically.

In general, I try to get my women students to hit like hell and really play boldly and loudly at first and I try to get my young men students
to play very quietly and dynamically at first.

All of these, of course, are stereotypes but as a teacher you have to work with what is not what you wish would be.

I think that women have so much to offer the world of drumming and it's great to go to PASIC annually and see the small minority of young
and mature women who brave the masses of male drummers and really go for it.

To the person who said she doesn't have the body strength to be a good drummer, go find a really, good professional
drummer to study with..................you CAN DRUM and you can drum strongly without upper body strength.

Also -- if you know of any others not already discussed in this thread, please let me know. We're building a comprehensive library of drummer biographies and always adding new entries.

Check out our progress so far: beta.drumchannel.com/library...age.aspx

Feel free to make any suggestions and we'll do all we can to incorporate them into our site.

Given the heavy gender bias of the Catholic Church, I'm convinced it was a gender issue, despite a ban on all drums.
But this is an intuition and not based on facts.

If you have the chance, try and see Layne's fascingating slide
show................it might make a believer out of you as well.