This article addresses gender and popular music-making in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand, a moderately prosperous provincial city (population 130,000) which services a large rural sector (the Waikato). Starting from the observation that few women enrol in tertiary commercial music courses in Hamilton, I aim to examine both the pedagogical experiences and perceptions of students relating to these courses, but also the background of beliefs and practices relating to gender and music in Hamilton, focusing on the live original music scene and its participants. My research question is 'what factors enable or disable women's participation in original popular music performance in Hamilton?'