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My wife has a theory...
We were listening to some Sheryl Bailey last night, and my wife was actually rather shocked when i told her the players name..."Wow, a woman." She said.
For a minute, I actually thought I was going to come back with "Yeah, there's lots of women in jazz..." And there's many. But not a lot, not by a long shot. And certainly not as much as the ratio of male/female artists in rock or pop or country...
So my wife says, jokingly "I speak for all women when I say we like songs with words." I laugh, but then start thinking...where is the largest segment of female jazz musicians? In the vocalist category, right?
But "no," I say, "it has to be more than that." To which Vanessa says something that I'm still sitting with today that makes sooo much sense and I can't shake it...
She says "Women aren't wired to get obsessed with things like men are. And before you go there, yeah, I own a lot of shoes. But I also don't catalog them, arrange them in certain ways depending on my mood, or join internet forums about shoes. Men obsess differently. Men "collect.""
That last line started to make sense to me...as a jazz musician, as an instrumental improvisor, we are collectors of sounds, right? Would anyone who plays jazz here as their main music agree that they are obsessed with it? I know I am.
So is it the man's obsessive nature that makes him more likely to be bitten by the jazz bug? What do our members (male and female) think? Certainly it has nothing to do with ability (If you've heard Sheryl you KNOW that ain't it!)
(I always thought it was men's competitive nature that led us to "extreme" musics...but then I watched an episode of the Bachelor and learned about competition.)
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01-25-2012 05:43 PM
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Any explanation would have to explain why there are plenty of female classical musicians, across a wide variety of instruments.
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Yes if you get a thicker padded suede leather strap that would be the best, it'll distribute the weight more and won't slip around on your shoulder.
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I do know more men involved in jazz than women but there are still quite a few out there, past and present.
An excerpt of a list I made for a previous women and jazz guitar thread with website links or youtube search links.
Linda Oh
lindaohmusic.com
Toshiko Akiyoshi
Toshiko Akiyoshi - YouTube
Geri Allen
Geri Allen I Pianist
Lynn Arriale
Lynne Arriale
Badi Assad
Badi Assad
Sheryl Bailey
Sheryl Bailey
Cindy Blackman
Cindy Blackman Santana | The Official Website
Carla Bley
Carla Bley - YouTube
Jane Ira Bloom
Jane Ira Bloom
Andrea Brachfeld
Andrea Brachfeld-Phoenix Rising Music
JoanneBrackeen
Joanne Brackeen
Terri Lyne Carrington
Terri Lyne Carrington
Regina Carter
REGINA CARTER | Reverse Thread
Anat Cohen
Anat Cohen Saxophones / Clarinet
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane - YouTube
Sylvie Courvoisier
Sylvie Courvoisier
Esperanza Spalding
Welcome to the OFFICIAL Website of Esperanza Spalding!
Leni Stern
LENI STERN
Amanda Monaco
Amanda Monaco, Guitar - Bio
Marilyn Crispell
Marilyn Crispell
Connie Crothers
Connie Crothers - Improvising Pianist
Sylvia Cuenca
Sylvia Cuenca
KJ Denhert
KJ Denhert | Urban Folk and Jazz Musician
Barbara Dennerlein
Barbara Dennerlein Homepage
Akua Dixon
Akua Dixon
Dorothy Donegan
Dorothy Donegan - YouTube
Eliane Elias
Eliane Elias - YouTube
Mimi Fox
Mimi Fox :: home/news
Susie Ibarra
Susie Ibarra - YouTube
Melba Liston
Melba Liston - YouTube
Erica Lindsay
E r i c a L i n d s a y . c o m | Homepage
Jessica Lurie
About – Jessica Lurie Music
Virginia Mayhew
Virginia Mayhew
Roberta Piket
Roberta Piket | Pianist, Composer | Progressive Female Pianist Roberta Piket Plays Jazz and Improvised Music Out of New York
Matana Roberts
Matana Roberts - YouTube
Maria Schneider
Maria Schneider
Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams - YouTube
Rachel Z
RachelZ.com - The Official Website of RachelZ!
Mary Halvorsen
mary halvorson » shows
Myra Melford
Myra Melford Homepage
Allison Miller
allison miller drummer - YouTube
Lisa Parrott
Home Page
Renee Rosnes
Renee Rosnes
Michele Rosewoman
Jazz pianist, composer and educator Michele Rosewoman, leader of Quintessence and New Yor-Uba
Jenny Scheinman
Jenny Scheinman - YouTube
Patrice Rushen
The Website of Patrice Rushen. Welcome.
Hiromi Uehara
HIROMIMUSIC.COM
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I would not be able to play standing with or without a strap. I wouldn't even try anymore. I used to do that all the time when I was a kid. I have no idea how aging rock stars deal with playing on their feet.
Originally Posted by srlank
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This is a great topic. I've wondered this too and never gone looking for a list. Now I have no more excuses. Originally Posted by bako
Thanks.
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Sharon have you tried the "Lap Strap" technique? This technique saved my back.....literally. Originally Posted by srlank
Hi folks,
I was just going to post to the gear category, but couldn't resist putting in my 2cents here as well. I am a female guitar player and music therapist of intermediate jazz-playing ability. I am obsessed with the guitar, and as a result I have a number of joint issues. I actually had to stop playing for many years, but got back into it through the back door as a music therapist playing Nirvana songs
. (I don't know whether the joint issues are related to my gender, or if in fact they happen often to the male gender as well. There are female players such as Sheryl Bailey and Mimi Fox who look quite comfortable when playing. And as BigDaddy points out above, there are many women classical players who are functioning beautifully).
As a result of joint issues, it has been a struggle to find a decent jazz guitar that is comfortable to play. I used to use a 335, which I loved playing; but I am no longer able to utilize this instrument. I therefore was playing a Strat, which to be even moderately comfortable I was utilizing a modified sitting postition with a footstool.
This Sunday I was at a guitar show in Costa Mesa, CA., and I found a 15 inch Eastman, which I bought and took home. It has been about as comfortable as the Strat, but I think if I could use a strap I would be even more comfortable. The problem is that I have is a thin, cheap strap; and I feel a pull on the left-hand side of my back after a few minutes of playing. I am therefore wondering if anyone knows whether or not a thicker strap might help alleviate this problem, and if so, which brand would be best.
Thanks for any information!
Sharon
1 You need a seat with a back to sit back into.
2 The height of the seat must allow your two feet to be firmly on the ground.
2 Attach a medium wide strap to the back pin.
Run the strap under the side of the instrument(the lower bout) somehow get it passed the guitar jack....go to the upper side of it. (this will only work with a reasonably thick guitar body)
3 Let the strap go across your lap and fall over your left leg.
4 Now tuck that end of the strap underneath you and sit on it.
5 See how the neck of your instrument has risen upward?
6 Adjust the amount of strap that you sit on to adjust the neck angle.
You should be able to sit comfortably with your feet on the ground and your guitar neck pointing however high you want it.
Don't cross your legs and don't use a footstool. You don't need to.
I can sit this way for hours with the guitar just balancing there.
Your feet should be flat on the ground.
Your left hand should not be holding the neck up.
Your back should be straight and comfortably pushed into the seat back.
Good luck.
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Hi Sharon, Originally Posted by srlank
Great seeing you here!
Try one of these: index.html or Bob Brookwood Leather - Custom Leather Guitar and Bass Straps bob@brookwoodleather.com 717-713-0667 click here toJoin the Brookwood Leather Fans on Facebook -- you can't go wrong with either.
Congrats on your new Eastman, too!
Marc
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I haven't tried the "lap strap" technique myself, but a quick Google search revealed the following articles you might want to check out: Originally Posted by srlank
Make Your Guitar More Ergonomic with The Lap-Strap
Holding the Guitar
Hope that helps!
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uh, but to get back on topic...
let's not make it about jazz yet, let's make it about gender (that was the point, was it not?).
first let us assess:
1. what is the percentage of all professional instrumentalists who are women? (in America, let's say)
2. what is the percentage of all professional instrumental composers who are women? (again, in America)
Once we fully research, define, and asses the above two questions I believe that we will have a baseline from which to understand the original question, posed above.
Why? Because jazz is primarily an instrumental music. Further, the soloist is not only an instrumentalist, but also an extemporaneous "composer".
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I don't think there is any correlation between gender and preference for vocal music instead of instrumental. I think most people prefer songs with words, not just women.So my wife says, jokingly "I speak for all women when I say we like songs with words." I laugh, but then start thinking...where is the largest segment of female jazz musicians? In the vocalist category, right?
Whenever you start discussing gender I think it's important to pay respect to the pretty huge debate about what is cultural and what is biological, with some people believing that all we know about gender is purely conditioned by society, and some that argue that most of the observable differences between men and women (besides the physical) are a result of biology and evolution. In my opinion, usually far too many assumptions are made based relatively cursory (or even flat out incorrect) observations.
Relating to my point above, surely you can point to fifteen women you know that aren't very obsessive and fifteen men you know that are very obsessive, but that doesn't prove enough to support the point above. Perhaps you could even do a study, with controls and everything, proving that men across the world are more prone to compulsive or obsessive behavior relating to hobbies, crafts. Even if you could go these lengths, you wouldn't be proving anything about 'wiring,' you'd be proving the state of things, not their origins. And then we're getting into analyzing the material of the brain, and...on and on.She says "Women aren't wired to get obsessed with things like men are."
I'm sure that even if I tried I wouldn't do a very good job of hiding the fact that I dislike these generalizations and I think of it as important to speak out against them - or at least encourage more accurate wording.
Plenty of women get plenty obsessed with plenty of things, and there are plenty of passionless men. It's a silly statement, no offense to you or your wife intended.
This is just incorrect. I've known plenty of women who have compulsive tendencies like those described, and who participate in online forums for their interests.And before you go there, yeah, I own a lot of shoes But I also don't catalog them, arrange them in certain ways depending on my mood, or join internet forums about shoes. Men obsess differently. Men "collect.""
Maybe there is some data out there proving that men spend more time on special interest forums than women do. If so, that would be a statement about the state of things rather than biological truths about men and women.
Maybe your wife's statements were meant as gross generalizations.
So is it the man's obsessive natureAs I wrote of before, here we have examples of taking an incorrect observation as fact and attempting to use it to move to further conclusions.(I always thought it was men's competitive nature)
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As a disclaimer again, no disrespect to you personally, Mr. B, I just do find these generalizations aggravating. I know it's not your intention to be offending anybody's political sensibilities.
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Certainly no offense taken...I just think you're taking my post a little too seriously.
Generalizations are generalizations...they are not true for all...but they do have truth...
Perhaps it would be better to say that an obsessive nature concerning knowledge/collecting etc. , which, from my experience, is a trait more males posess, is also a common trait in jazz musicians...
So it's certainly not the only factor. But it might definitely be a factor with some weight to it. Or not.
I'd still like to hear what some others think.
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Well it isn't just jazz. I have worked about a decade as a computer programmer and in that time I came into contact with 100s of programmers. NONE of them were female.
I also messed around with some robot building, entered various forums etc. Do I need to say how many female robot builders I have encountered?
It seems that whenever things get too NERDY (in lack of a better word) the females can't be bothered. And guys we did pretty much pick the nerdiest of music genres and on top of that the nerdiest of instruments
I come from a school of thought where there is little difference between the sexes. That is.. I was taught that apart from minor anatomic and some (significant) hormonal differences we are equipt with the same brain and therefore equal capabilities and natures. That other supposed differences in "hardware" are often cultural fenomenas superimposed on the respective sexes.
But there does seem to be some major differences when it comes to obsession a you say and also competing. When a guy collects stamps he doesn't stop there. He catalogs them, collects information about them, spends entire nights in company of other men collecting stamps and eventually he will start comparing his collection to those of the others, which will motivate him to allocate more resources to his stamp collection...etc...
I dunno... it is infact a true mystery...
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My perspective is that music for many people, male or female, is about the song, the melody, the tune, recognizable and has a memorable hook. For others its also about the performance, technique, approach "how did he (or she) come-up with that". I think jazz lovers are very much in the second camp (as well as the first). I realized this when I was listening to some early Wes Montgomery and after a brief time both my wife and son were ready to listen to something else. They both love music and listen frequently but neither of them share my fondness for jazz. Recently I purchased Trio, Pedersen, Pass, Peterson live at London Hall, the performances absolutely blow me away. I want to share this with my wife and son, but in doing so I know I will have to explain my enthusiasm and preface it with- you won't recognize the song, what I want you to listen to are the musicians playing their instruments, live, no second takes, appreciate the skill, ability, the melody and notes coming from the piano, the guitar, and bass, individually and together and did I say that this is live! I think they will appreciate musicianship, but it won't give them a new fondness for jazz because they didn't recognize the melody, the tune and there was no memorable hook, but me, I'm blown away - oh - and I didn't recognize the song either.
If you were to poll men and women as to which camp they're in as stated in my opening statement, I would guess that there may be a higher percentage of men in the second camp - or - is that a sexist statement?
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hehe, I wrote those posts around 1 or 2am after a got back from the bar. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
It now being the day after, I'm still skeptical of the train of thought that's carrying the idea that men are more "'obsessive about collecting" than women, and that that reveals truths about why there are more men in jazz guitar (or some fields) than others.
I honestly think that:
- As Bako pointed out, there are plenty of accomplished women in jazz, just fewer than men.
- There are cultural influences that encourage men to seek accomplishment more so than women. I think these cultural influences are too many and too vast for me to even begin listing or discussing...
- There are biological influences that encourage men to seek accomplishment more so than women. In the vacuum of certain biological models (which to some are arguable and theoretical and to others are inarguable fact) there is the idea that women have a much stronger instinct than men to have and raise children and focus their energy on that. So energy that men might be putting towards their career, hobbies, art, etc, women are putting more of that energy into having or keeping a family and raising children.
(Again, I'm just saying that's a perspective within a perspective - I don't necessary think its true or false.)
Rather than figuring out (or taking strange guesses) as to what all these cultural and biological influences are regarding women and music (and/or certain instruments and genres) I find it much more interesting for everybody including myself to question whether our actions are at all isolating women from certain fields or activities. Of course the knee jerk reaction is "of course there's nothing I'm doing that's preventing women from starting to play jazz!" And maybe after a few knee-jerks that's still the reaction. Maybe a few questions that I think lead in a productive direction:
Guitar teachers - do you think you teach your female students differently than your male students beyond just a response to the different feedback they give you? (I only recently noticed that I really do choose different content - especially when it comes to 'rock riffs' - with my male students than with my female students. I'm embarrassed because I did it without thinking about it!)
When discussing jazz with someone who is not a jazz musician, do you feel you approach the discussion differently with a woman than with a man, even if initially the feedback they give is the same (or non existent?)
A harder question to answer - When watching a female jazz musician perform, or listening to a recording, how much of your perception of the music itself is altered (or distracted) by the gender of the person playing it? Again the knee jerk reaction is surely "not at all!" but with some self awareness I think we all might find it not to be the case...
When at a gig, does the gender makeup of the audience affect your playing? Since you're improvising, do you think you play differently if it's a more female audience vs. a male audience?
On and on...I think they are interesting questions to consider. Honestly I'm not sold on the nature vs nurture thing. I know some people that are almost irrationally passionate/headstrong on both sides of the debate.Last edited by JakeAcci; 01-26-2012 at 11:19 AM.
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And thats why most people who dont play instruments dont listen to jazz as well. Most ppl cant get into endless improv espcially w/o lyrics in between the solos
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Is it just me? I prefer instrumentals. I don't like to listen to singing. I've felt this way for a long time and it's not just jazz -- I have a lot of classical recordings and not much of it has singing on it.
I don't like talking either!
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If you read what Emily Remler said, you would hear one very important factor that I have not read mentioned - The Good Ol' Boys Club.
She had the will and desire to overcome it and had some great musicians take her under their wing. I bet most aspiring women jazz guitarist don't.
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Great point, and I feel that's very congruent with my previous post - in her view, the male musicians around her were doing a lot (whether intentionally or not) to keep her "down." Originally Posted by AlsoRan
I don't doubt the basic truth in this. It is interesting, however, to think about the context of that statement.I recall that she had to be considerably better than a man in order to be taken seriously at all, and that this helped her move forward.
For example, did she say it? Being 'good' is subjective, so if her premise was "I am as good as many male players who get far more recognition than me. I do not get the same recognition and it is because of my gender" my first thought is - how did she know that it was her gender and not simply the fact that she was objectively less exceptional than she perceived herself to be? It's proven every minute of every day that it's difficult for people to evaluate themselves accurately - especially musicians!
So if she was at some point insisting that she was a better player than another male guitarist, yet was not being thought of as highly, maybe it was actually her playing, not her gender, that made the community around her rate the two players in that way. Or maybe it was her gender. Or a little bit of both. Or maybe her gender was actually lifting her up, the rarity of a female jazz guitarist causing more attention. Hard to really say objectively.
Point is that it's an interesting statement, makes me think about self assessment.
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When the subject comes up, this seems to be the attitude I often hear from female musicians and it seems to me to me the most logical perspectiveTherefore, I generally try to just not focus on it.
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There's also no affirmative action nonsense in music.
I spent 37 years in corporate aviation and while I flew with several excellent female pilots, I know of many who got their jobs because their companies had government contracts and had to present themselves as equal opportunity. In particular I remember a MAJOR oil company that hired a marginally qualified female over much more qualified males just because their HR department told them that they had to.
That's not about to happen in jazz.
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It's probably not just you. But I think I can safely state a lot of music fans prefer vocal performances. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
I know I do.
The voice (IMO) is the direct path to the "heart".....sorry for that word, I have to be emotive.
It's what most human beings are wired to respond to.......another human being communicating with some sort of emotionally charged voice.
I'm one of those saps who cries whilst watching sad TV commercials.
If I hear Joni Mitchell sing the orchestral backed version of "Both Sides Now" I'm going to be transfixed and yes I will shed a tear.
But I will feel something much larger than that, something affirming.....that human beings can transcend and produce something that is more than the sum of their talents.
Don't know if I can put it into words without sounding like a hippy jerk.
Anyway I think that any instrument that mimics the human voice can be quite emotional.
Sax....because they breath into the instrument. Violin because it can weep and scream.
Guitar.......less so for me.
Where guitar rules for me is in the excitement category.
Martino, Wes, Hendrix, Mahavishnu etc.
I like the excitement of it and I'm drawn to it.
Doesn't make me cry though.......doesn't touch me deeply in that way but it certainly does something to me.
Excites me, motivates me and ultimately shapes my life in a big way.
To bring it back on topic....why aren't their more women playing Jazz guitar"? ...perhaps they opt to sing.
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quote: "I come from a school of thought where there is little difference between the sexes. That is.. I was taught that apart from minor anatomic and some (significant) hormonal differences we are equipt with the same brain and therefore equal capabilities and natures. That other supposed differences in "hardware" are often cultural fenomenas superimposed on the respective sexes."
This is delusional propaganda, IMO.
1. Our brains are not the same, first of all.
2. Our "anatomic differences" are not minor - they couldn't be more MAJOR. (Thanks be to God)
3. We don't have "equal capabilities" - not by a long shot. Mind you, in some ways we do have equal capabilities, and in some ways we don't. But how the heck is that "equal"? Proportional perhaps, but not equal.
4. I don't understand your last sentence at all.
Here's an experiment for you. For one week, try treating women exactly the way that you treat men. How you look at them, how you speak to them, how you regard them, or act blunt or gruff or crude to them even if just joking around. More specifically, do this with both a female boss at work and a female "report" (subordinate) at work. Just wait and see what happens to you.
Can you say..... blowback?
Don't believe everything you hear from pop culture. (Dangerous curves ahead)
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Fumble, obviously there are differences in the genders. The way I see it, the jury is still out on whether those differences are innate or just a result of social conditioning.
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