Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner It is said that musicians, specially pianists, who are male are suspected to be gays.

"There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists."

(Horowitz was two of the three.)

I know it probobly must seem that many gay people play the piano, but I'm not gay and I play the piano! I could name at least 20 other people I know who are definately not gay who play the piano. I truly only have met one or two gay pianists.... unless everyone isn't being truthful.....

Where does LISZT fit into this picture?

My brother gave up piano lessons after about 5 weeks and he's gay. I still play now after 15 years or so and everyone thinks I'm gay. There's an irony in there somewhere I'm sure.

Oh, how come no-one mentioned the genius of Liberace in a gay pianist thread?

To reply to the whole LESBIAN question a few posts ago....

I think there's a LOT more gay pianists than lesbian pianists. In South Africa, I haven't met or heard of one lesbian pianist, but have had my share of gay pianists.

But I don't know whether there's any connection between the two, but personally, I really hope not, coz my future perfect husband must also be a pianist!

Hi from South Africa

I wouldn't say that a lot of classical pianists have a tendency to be gay. Disco pianists on the other hand...

Do you think that there are a lot more male pianists than female pianists in South Africa?

This thread is getting absurd, but you might find this interesting.

My work career has been varied, and outside of my interest in music. I've worked in factories, field service, computer rooms, etc., over the many years of employment. I noticed that as the education goes up, for the most part, the tolerance level of others goes up as well.

As a PC-board solderer, I worked with, well let's put it, a rough crowd. There was never any Classical music on the radio, and the biggest thing to do was to get drunk on Friday to Sunday.

To give you a picture of the environment, the women walked around with cigarette packs tucked under their sleeves, and had the butts stuck to their lower lip with an ash that was the length of the cigarette. The men wore overalls, and had tattoos up and down their arms, and mostly had a beer or more for lunch. The scary part is the women had deeper voices then the men in many cases.

Anyway, at one point, someone who knew I was studying music, asked me if all Classical composers were gay! Huh? What!!? I've never heard that before!

I probed deeper, and through the rather ignorant conversation with the and duffs like dat, and ya know dat duff. I got the impression that it's because the music sounds gay compared to rock music.

Hmmm... I though deeply before I spoke. I said that maybe some where gay, but not all of them. Bach had 8 children, Mozart had a family, Schubert died from syphillis caught on his birthday, and Robert Schumann married Clara Wiek. The other macho-man looked at me in amazement, and didn't say anything.

There was an openly gay man working there. He was picked on with some pretty low-life insults that would make anyone's stomach churn. He took it on the chin, and gave a few back. We used to talk at lunch, and one day my supervisor spoke with me because that gave people a bad impression about me. Now, granted this was twenty-five years ago, and today these types of actions wouldn't be tolerated in the workplace, including the discussion with my supervisor, but these thing happened did then and were taken for granted.

There were others there too that were suspected of being gay, and people would make comments even though these people claimed they weren't. These people acted so macho that it was sickening.

Now from the eyes of a casual observer, what does this prove? It proves that there maybe no more gay people in the performing and visual arts than in other occupations, it's just as we've said before that the people in the arts are more comfortable with themselves, and therefore, act like themselves rather than to hold everything in.

John

One of my former piano teachers -- a woman and also a personal friend -- told me that during her four years at Juillard, she found it difficult to find other students there who were male and not gay. Probably she was referring mostly to pianists.

Hey John,

Correction, Bach had 20 children,... the joke is because his organ didn't have any stops.

Bruce said:
While I neither agree nor disagree with your scientific study assertion (as I just don't know), it seems (if true) to subtly contradict your final statement don't you think? That is to say, your last statement implies that the fact of one's being gay brings no other genetic qualities along with it! It seems that if one were to truly believe that being gay is mostly genetic, then they would have to also believe that the same set of genes might produce a person who liked certain things (or does certain things) more than others might. So you're not allowing the piano-playing affinity quality (for lack of a better term) to be genetic (and related to an alleged gay gene). Surely if homosexuality is genetic, then it would show up in a variety of characteristics in a person. And perhaps it does. I was a little thrown by your logic there, so take this for whatever it's worth.

Rick

Are pianists who are female suspected to be lesbians too? I think they are! Did you also notice that most of these female pianists especially those playing in the chopin competition have no armpit hair too? So I think they must have been genetically modified.

Good one Steve!

Well said sir. What you just said applys directly with the way I am. I am straight, but I'm constantly consumed by the music... not women.

not ALWAYS though...

sometimes, a nice distraction is a GOOD thing.

I havn't found that there are an unusual amount of gay pianists, but I have found, at least at my school, that literally the majority of male tenor's are gay. I don't know if my university is just unusually gay, but 50%+ is definately a close aproximation.

Hi, folks. It's been a while, but I just had to post on this one. "Suspected to be gay" (subject-line)? Almost always, especially in school. I remember being suspected of being gay even before I realized I *was* gay. (Boy, was *that* disconcerting!) And I'm fairly certain that one is not "made" gay. But don't quote me. Anyway, I agree with John - fundamentally, it doesn't matter, at least not to anyone else but you and the person/persons with whom you are intimate. Let the others guess!

Ciao...

There are 8 male piano majors in my university including me and 3 of them are definitely gay. A few guys I'm not too sure about.

I am 100% straight and have never been suspected of being gay. I'd have to say that a bigger percentage of voice majors are gay in my university than pianists. Come to think of it, almost all of the voice majors are homosexual in my school.

NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE HERE but I'm not one to hangout with homosexuals. My guy friends are and have always been attracted to girls. I guess you can say I'm homophobic.

But when it comes to playing the piano, I am not shy about expressing my feelings. Who cares what anybody thinks!

Not in THAT way man, then they'd be BI-sexual not homosexual! But you know that story about gay guys having lots of girl-friends, well that's true, and I've been in that boat.