Why Is It Chicks Stink on Electric Guitar (video)

The first reaction to a statement like that might be hey, asshole, lighten up.  That isn't what happens as women will get defensive and the first reaction may be well, I know lots of women who are excellent on electric guitar.  When I ask 'where are they,' the next response is well, I know lots of men who suck on electric guitar too.  Of course you do, girl, as every man on the planet plays electric guitar and most suck.  Presumably that was a back-handed shot at me but that's ok as that would hardly be the first time someone has said I suck.

But there's nothing sexist in what I said.  It's an observation and, unless you can find me one living, fire-breathing, big hall electric guitarist who is also in possession of breasts that were not medically-implanted, I will retain my belief that it is true.  The sexist aspect would be telling you why it is true and for that I have no idea.  Maybe it's because women were oppressed by a male-dominated society, I don't know.  That's not my article but it's a reasonable hypothesis.  That doesn't make it true but it would be worth considering.

Or we can go looking around and then we find Tina S.  She is French but her English is quite good.  In the first video I saw she was fifteen and in later ones she appears to be maybe eighteen.  She's a good-looking young lady and her future could go in many directions.  The direction below is probably not one you would predict.  You can find her on Twitter.

This is one of the best covers I've ever heard of the lead line from "Comfortably Numb" and, what do you know, it's a young girl doing this ... but girls don't do this ... they never have.  So I'm fascinated.


Voodoo and I talked a little about her as the skills she has been taught are obvious ... but ... what does it all mean.  Rather than paraphrasing what he said, I'll copy it here.

This trend of posting videos of prodigy kids duplicating the work of famous musicians is starting to bug me a bit. Of course I think it's great that young musicians are spending time and energy to get very technically proficient. But I find myself wondering why there are much fewer videos of young prodigies who play original music being shared. The impression the internet as a whole gives is that if you want to get noticed as a musician, be 12 years old and able to duplicate musically what someone did 30, 40 years ago. This isn't really directed at you or her just a general observation.

Rather than rewriting any of it, I'll continue with the rest of the exchange.  I responded:

Nothing personal and I agree as my first thought on hearing her is what kind of original stuff can she do. What struck me the most is that Anne Wilson is the only other woman I ever heard play an electric guitar credibly. I'm sure there must be others but it's very rare. I don't have a good answer for why that should be so it remains in the Unusual Phenomena category for now ... and then I hear this kid with wiggle skills on those notes that a master would envy. But where will she go from here. I'm most curious!

To which Voodoo replied,

The other problem with young students duplicating famous solos is they are not playing "in the moment". When David Gilmour played that solo originally he was playing spontaneous ideas that came from within.. ideas that took years to develop. What he had was a musical vocabulary that could allow him to express himself. Not a series of memorized phrases.


Someone has gone to great trouble to teach Tina S about one aspect of electric guitar playing as she must have had a pretty good helping of theory to understand what she is doing.  She knows the chords and the scales plus she seems to have a very good memory.  This isn't all of music and that's the danger Voodoo mentions.


Yngwie Malmsteen was why electric guitar playing died ... but doesn't mean he won't get covered.  Here is what may well be the Instrument of the Destruction of Tina S.  There is a huge risk that she will be turned into a recital artist ... and then we will never hear from her again.  There are many girls who can smoke a violin in classical recitals.  That's fine ... but it doesn't tell me one damn thing that's in the head of the girl that does it.  OK, girl, I hear you can do the recital ... but what can you play.

This is the kind of thing that gets people thinking it's cool to play the Minute Waltz in forty-five seconds ... or, wtf, shoot for thirty and get the World's Record for the Most Idiotic Guitar Solo.


Don't read this as in any way discouraging.  I want to see Tina S succeed.  I want her to be bigger than Hendrix and to play music that would even bring tears to the One True God.  And, here's a tip, I bet Hendrix wants that too as, think of it, what concert would he attend.

The only way that will happen is if she plays original or she'll wind up being a female Joe Bonamassa and will only play the same song over and over.  You can get lots of gigs that way but so what.  There's no story in them.

I want to see Tina S when she is twenty-eight and all decked out in leather.  She's on her knees at the front of the stage where she is bending a string twice around the neck of the guitar so that axe screams like it's dying in orgasmic agony.  In that moment she becomes the Olympian Guitar Goddess.  I know she has the mechanical skills but does she have it in her head to do it.  I hope so.


I was talking with my friend, Noma Falta, who is the great Blues Lady of Second Life.  Don't read any sarcasm in that.  She really is the Blues Lady and she's good at it ... but ... when she was young they taught her some piano.  She was a little kid and and what she really wanted was to play with a plastic guitar but they told her that was for boys.

Say what?  I had never heard of this rule before but it shows there really is some sexist stuff behind this.  Obviously there has to be as men do it and women usually don't but how does that happen.  It seems that little plastic guitar was part of it.  Since it happened to Noma Falta then I assume it happened to other women as well when they were kids.  It wouldn't be appropriate to guess Noma's age but I can tell you she is considerably younger than I and that's so you can have some idea of a sexist time frame in which she would have been hearing this.

So a guitar is not ladylike or feminine.  Well.  Who knew, right?