Girls Can't Play Guitar

[marnold]

Girls can't play guitar . . . yeah, right. I'd like to hear her guitar higher in the mix. The impressive thing is that she almost seems . . . bored at parts. Impressive indeed.

XpASSx0ecTU

[Jimi75]

I always wonder why it is so special when a girl plays the guitar well...we are all human beings, but I understand female electric guitarists are a rare breed :-)
That was pretty accurate and fast but the sad truth is that somehow our world lost the view for real skills - just ask yourself why this video below, although she's not the untalented, has almost 3k comments...

http://youtu.be/d2nMo-Tt9R0

[Stevie Ray]

Juliette Valduriez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIbIR-Ddkjw

[Retro Hound]

My wife just ran across that Tina S last week. She watched a handful of them even though she really doesn't care for that kind of music much.

Obviously, Jess Greenberg has beautiful eyes. And a nice voice.

[Robert]

She was good at early age (although she is still young).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXotdh-nwAU

But let's be real - rock, blues and metal guitar playing is dominated by males. Why? I can think of couple of reasons.

1) Guitar players seem to be competitive. Playing the fastest, the most impressive/technical, etc. I think there are plenty of female singer/songwriter role models, but they aren't playing like EVH or Yngwie or Hendrix or Bonamassa, etc. I am guessing most girls aren't as interested in the competitive aspect.

2) There aren't enough famous female guitar players that can function as role models for young girls.

3) Sexism.

In comparison, playing the flute is probably more common for girls.

PS.
It wasn't until 1982 that Berklee had their first female guitar graduate (Lauren Passarelli, who is now a professor there). They opened doors in 1945.

[Robert]

This is pretty badass! A muslim girl playing Lamb Of God and breaking the stereotypes!


https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1060301267343569

[Eric]

But let's be real - rock, blues and metal guitar playing is dominated by males. Why? I can think of couple of reasons.

1) Guitar players seem to be competitive. Playing the fastest, the most impressive/technical, etc. I think there are plenty of female singer/songwriter role models, but they aren't playing like EVH or Yngwie or Hendrix or Bonamassa, etc. I am guessing most girls aren't as interested in the competitive aspect.
2) There aren't enough famous female guitar players that can function as role models for young girls.
3) Sexism.

In comparison, playing the flute is probably more common for girls.
I was just thinking about this the other day and I agree with the competitiveness. There's also some sort of visceral aspect to electric guitar that I think resonates a lot with guys (hence the popularity of classic rock, hard rock, metal) but not so much for girls. And for the girls it does resonate with, they find a musical landscape already absolutely overrun with guys who were attracted to the guitar and know it at least a little bit, so they pick up something like drums, bass, keys, singing (the less common but necessary elements for a band) and get into music that way.

It's an interesting, self-perpetuating thing (males and the attraction to electric guitar).

[Jimi75]

I'll be totally honest on this topic:
I have a problem enjoying female musicians in Metal and Rock. I can live with female singers in Blues, but it feels strange as soon as they play guitar or even worse, the drums. The more jazzy and classical it gets, the more I enjoy female instrumentalists and singers. Especially in classical guitar and opera singing I don't feel that "looks and feels strange" barrier. ...and before you start dissing me here - no I absolutely do not have a problem with women :-)

[Robert]

Can you explain why you have this problem, Jimi?

[Eric]

In fairness, it could just be cognitive dissonance. Rock and metal are almost always soaked in machismo. I don't think the difficulty in reconciling them is necessarily a bad thing.

[Jimi75]

No deeper explanation at hand here. I started listening to Metal as a young kid and my favourite style of Metal was dominated by bands such as Metallica and Slayer. At that time I couldn't get into the whole hair metal thing under which also bands like Lita Ford, Vixxen etc. fell - the whole female metal artist thing was too fakey and blown up - sorry I just didn't buy it and still don't. There's so many female artists I totally love, but they do a different thing, have a different approach, just as the male artists I love listening to.

[Stevie Ray]

Joanna Connor -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJyaRWCzxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tp34z9-wc