https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:00:58 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-386813 Thu, 21 Jan 2016 20:39:48 +0000
That being said, I think female guitar players are a rare breed and its up to us to carve our own way to success, happiness and what ever other goals you personally have.]]> The Other Side Danica L https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-386813 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-73312 Thu, 21 Oct 2004 14:24:46 +0000
Right girls!!!

im not some kind of feminist, i just really believe that statement. We appear to be rare, but it is only because we get less credit and spotlight for what we do. Maybe if we played guitar and had no arms, we may... JUST MAY get some recognition then!]]> The Other Side Nicola https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-73312 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-72860 Sat, 16 Oct 2004 23:53:02 +0000 The Other Side bmsguitarchick https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-72860 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-70660 Sun, 26 Sep 2004 05:27:38 +0000
The female gender tends to be more single-minded than the male gender in certain areas........but I have noticed, most female guitarists play Rhythm rather than lead.......and tend to focus on fingerpicking.....

Anyone old enough to remember the Honeycombs......"Have I the Right" way back in about 64 will remember the controversy .....not just a female drummer, but singing as well!!!......Karen Carpenter played drums as well as singing.....

Women tend to be better at multi-tasking than men, dunno why, possibly because men think about sex every eight seconds, and sport and guitars for the other seven,,,,,,,

But hey, it's a big planet, there's plenty of room for all of us out there.......
Gender is irrelevant, musicianship is the issue......it seems to me that music, and rock music in particular, has been a male preserve for so long that one forgets how many truly talented women there are out there....and no, they don't get the same recognition as men.......so I'd say that a woman guitarist may not have to be twice as good as a male guitarist to get noticed......she'll stand out anyway because there are so few women guitarists....but she'll have to work twice as hard to get the same respect as a lesser-talented male guitarist........

Vic]]> The Other Side Vic Lewis VL https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-70660 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-70534 Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:09:08 +0000
Women not pursuing music as a career, I think does have to do with what you said before, the living day to day and playing dive bars. Most women have a goal of being married with children, even the ones that are more career oriented but girls, I said most. In order to support a family, it requires stability. You should know better than me Noteboat, I know you have kids, they bought you a tele for father's day, which is way cool. Plus women don't want to spend most of their time in dive bars, at least I know I don't - It also isn't conducive to meeting a decent man to have a family with. I find men have the same desire as woman for a family though, but maybe woman are a little more concerned with financial stability. (Actually all the men I know are more set on having kids than most my female friends, maybe it's that whole 9 months thing.) I think the lack of female players in other instruments is credited to young girls usually want to play the flute or violin. No little girl wants to play the tuba and most don't want to play the trumpet or saxohphone, maybe this goes back to those instruments not being girly. Even if they start to play the trumpet, I guess they don't continue with it again because of stability. Maybe women are just more practical thann men when it comes to careers because all music careers are considered to have more of a rocky road. Regis, that's my final answer - it doesn't necessarily go back to family but practicality and a more realistic outlook on the difficulties of being a starving musician. But wait, in the end that would that mean women just aren't as committed to their dream? Did I just undo feminism?

Lastly, oh man, I thought I was unique :cry: . I sound a lot like your other female students. I am a bit ecclectic in what I like to play and I don't really focus on speed. I was going to say that the working until I get everything right doesn't apply to me but then again I play songs over and over because I can't stand hitting a wrong note, even just a buzzed one and I still do it all the time!]]> The Other Side purple https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-70534 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-70485 Fri, 24 Sep 2004 15:30:26 +0000 any instrument, in any style, there seems to be little gender parity except on violin and vocals, where women are probably more than half the field, and on flute, where they are the large majority.

But go to any school orchestra: there are more girls than boys on virtually every instrument. The hottest young brass player I've heard in the past ten years is a girl - Nicole Sasser - and while she's just in her late teens, she plays everything from classical to Dixieland with tone and expression that blow me away.

As a result, my musing leads me to believe this is NOT a guitar thing! It appears to me that at some point between instruction and career choice, women opt out of music. It's not because they can't teach (which I hope I didn't imply - I certainly didn't mean that) or perform, it's that they simply don't pursue music.

It's true that among student guitarists there's a stylistic difference in taste between boys and girls. Boys and men want to learn rock, almost exclusively. A few want to pursue blues, jazz, or bluegrass, but requests to learn rock styles are way above the others. Girls and women are far more eclectic: classical and folk are the most frequent requests, but they don't beat out the other styles by very much. Girls also request celtic, blues, jazz, and rock with some regularity.

I never really thought about differences in how women learn...everyone learns slightly differently, so the key to teaching is to be able to connect. Off the top of my head, here's the differences I see:

Girls tend to have smaller hands, so they do focus more on technique - they arch their fingers better than boys do. Many girls have played another instrument (often flute or piano), so they don't seem so put off by sight reading as boys. The number of smart-asses is a lot smaller among the girls... they don't waste time as much as boys as a very general observation.

Girls learn the basics better (faster) than boys. They seem to focus on doing it right, while boys are a bit more impatient - if they get some sound out of an open G chord, then it's "teach me something else", while girls are content to get it right.

Boys focus on speed. The average boy could care less if he plays all the notes cleanly, as long as he can blow away his friends with how fast he is.

If a student brings a CD of a song they want to learn... well, if I could bet even money on the type of music on that CD, with boys I'd be rich: it's metal. Sure, some will bring other stuff, but the frequency of metal really defies the odds - it's what 75% of male teen guitarists want to learn, and it can't be nearly that percentage of CD sales, radio airplay, or other influencing factors.

If a girl's got a CD, no bet - it could be anything. Weavers, Cranberries, Jewel, Bloomfield - it's all over the map.

Come to think of it, more boys bring CDs than girls, by a wide margin. They want to 'learn this song'. Girls as a rule just want to learn to play.

I don't see any difference in the rate of progress that's gender based. If they practice, they progress, if they don't, they stagnate. Neither gender strikes me as having an edge in practice discipline.

So I'm back to my original wondering: what is it about music that girls don't like as a career? It's not just rock, it's not just guitar - at some point in their late teens or early 20s, women leave the field. Why?]]> The Other Side NoteBoat https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/3/#post-70485 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70478 Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:37:15 +0000
Hmm... the difference between men and women guitarists occurs after the beginning stages if 50% of your students are females but 20% are teachers. Maybe women just don't make good teachers - this is a crack because woman are stereotyped to be better teachers than men and teaching is a female dominated field. So where are we losing the women?

I am going to take a stance here that first I have to say that I am a female (I guess woman but I am not prepared to call myself that yet, one day I will grow passed being 5 but not today.) Woman are just as capable as men to play the guitar. Woman aren't as committed to the guitar and it has nothing to do with the inability to be disciplined and practice. When we think guitarists, we think rock guitarists. More woman seem to be content with being more of a rhythm or acoustic guitarists. A Joan Baez or Nancy (or is that her sister) Wilson's ability should not be belittled to a male soloing virtuoso's ability. However, most woman are content to play chords (and usually sing along) and this is from the other female guitarists I have met, especially one who was more a song writer but I don't think she could play a pentatonic scale if you asked her. Exactly though, she picked up guitar for songwriting not to show up Hendrix. Maybe woman playing more acoustic style is just our nature since this is what we usually see from us. I think part of it though is nurture. I love rock music but it isn't too girly. Wait, I mean it isn't considered to be girly (despite all of the effeminate male rockers!) Society does play a roll in how we should see ourselves and what is appropriate for one to do. It begins from youth and maybe I am wrong because lord knows if I can't even call myself a woman, I certainly don't have kids but part of society being ingrained in us has to do with our parents. In other words, people treat their kids differently based on their sex unintentionally which causes parents to reiterate to their children social biases. Even my parents who were a little more ambiguous in their treatment of us, still did it unknowingly. I know men and women are different not just because of nurture, it is in our nature to be different. Hold on a second, I forgot where I was going with this.... OH ok, I guess what I am trying to say is that when people say that society is more open to women guitarists, it really isn't quite there yet. People may be open minded to not discriminate against a female guitarist, but society doesn't help create them. Maybe to break this cycle we need a more definitive female rock guitarist. I know we have several female greats but what we need is a great lead guitarist with the popularity of the Beatles since they were more popular than Jesus :P. I do agree women are less likely to like rock music by nature but as long as rock isn't seen as being girly, we will keep lacking female guitarists because women won't see themselves as one. When I say rock, I mean more the lead guitarists because Noteboat has shown that we aren't lacking in the desire to start playing but to go further with it. Now why don't the presidential candidates include important topics like the lack of female guitarists in their speeches and how to fix that? Did any of this make sense and am I totally wrong? Is rock not seen as girly because it is considered to be more aggressive and is it improper for women to be aggressive? I guess I will step off of my soap box.

Lastly, Noteboat, do you see difference in how men and women learn when teaching them? And if so, what are they usually?

I may have just hijacked this thread but Noteboat made me do it, I swear!]]> The Other Side purple https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70478 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70207 Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:17:34 +0000 The Other Side Elecktrablue https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70207 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70130 Tue, 21 Sep 2004 06:37:01 +0000
I've known some outstanding female musicians over the years, on a number of instruments. If I had to speculate on why there aren't more, I'd come up with a core reason that's a bit different from the common ones - it's the lifestyle. Since we're dealing with the male/female stereotypes here to begin with, who's more likely to want to hang out in smoky little dive bars for $25 a night, sleep 7 people to a budget hotel room on the road, and deal with all the uncertainties of not knowing how you're going to pay this month's rent if you don't get two more bookings?

As a general (and a very general) rule, the women I've known can't deal with the... um... accoutrements... that go with making music for a living, at least in the rock and roll sense, as well as the men I've known. Since the odds are heavily stacked against success, regardless of gender, maybe women are simply more realistic.

Notice that I'm dealing with the career issues - NOT the musical ones. Women are every bit the musicians that men are, and on every musical level - I think it's the transition from ability to career where the deck might be stacked unevenly. In my travels today, I met five other teaching musicians - one with a major symphony, one who tours with big names, and three average folks like me :) Four were men. Exactly half their students today (in total for all five, plus me) were female.

So... if half the student musicians are women, and only 17-20% of their teachers are (the pros they're learning from), the gap doesn't occur at the desire stage - it comes up later on. Having been teaching for 26 years, I can tell you firsthand that women do NOT lack the ability to learn the guitar in any way, shape, or form. The number of female students who ended up being able to blow me away with their natural gifts is exactly equal to the number of men - two of each sex spring immediately to mind. The total number of male to female students that I've taught are pretty darn close, too.

So, if the interest is there, and the ability is there, it's something else that prevents us from seeing as many women in the pro ranks as men. It's pretty clear to me it's nothing musical - which leads me to believe it's a lifestlye decision.

That will no doubt stir controversy... but I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts, from both sides of the gender fence.]]> The Other Side NoteBoat https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70130 https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70108 Tue, 21 Sep 2004 03:03:31 +0000 The Other Side Elecktrablue https://guitarnoise.forum/the-other-side-the-other-side/does-being-a-girl-make-you-good/paged/2/#post-70108