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My Love of the Guitar (Pt. 2)

Read Part One Here

I went to an early college (Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts), and while I was finishing up my BA thesis, I was also in my second year of private classical guitar lessons. I’d been playing for almost nine years already and was also playing the viola, and in two choirs, and music theory classes. I had a laptop, but this was before everything was done digitally, so I used my hands to write and edit and analyze notation in addition to taking notes, and editing drafts of my thesis. I write with my left hand, and I play “standard” guitar (which is to say that my left hand presses the frets and my right hand plucks the strings). My guitar teacher instructed me to practice a minimum of two hours a day, “but really six hours is more reasonable if you can manage that,” she’d suggested.  Because I adored her, even with a full course load and two babysitting jobs, I practiced as much as I could. This usually amounted to three hours a day.

“If I could play in the morning or late at night, I could practice even more,” I told her. “But I don’t want to bother my roommates.”

“Ah yes, I remember those days!” She reminisced. “When I was in college, I would wake up at 4 am and put socks on my hands. That way, when I played, it was very quiet!” She said this with a twinkle in her eye. I looked at her gesturing hands and arms and realized they were perfectly oriented to hold a guitar. Even without one in her arms, she was ready to play the guitar. I wanted to be more like her. But socks on my hands? At 4 am?

All I could muster up was: “I’ll give that a try.”

playing my G&L telecaster on a rooftop in Brooklyn, 2013. Photo by Lisa Myers.

I woke up earlier and drove to the soundproof practice rooms on campus. I’d set up my foot pedal, cut and file my fingernails, warm up, and set up the various pieces I was attempting to memorize. After three hours I’d head over to the library and sit in my cubicle I was allotted as a senior to read my books and take notes. For the first time, I was writing a long-form academic essay on anything of my choice. It was as exciting as it was terrifying. When the sun set, I’d pack up and drive to the next town over to babysit, where I would read, take notes, and write on the couch while a baby slept upstairs. (To this day I’ve never met this particular child. Once she woke up and I entered her room, picked her up, sang to her until she fell back asleep, and then put her back down and left the room again. But it was completely dark the whole time, so I feel this doesn’t really count as having properly met.)

After half a semester of this routine, my left arm began to hurt. I tried to give it a rest, but I was doing something with it almost every waking moment. I couldn’t help it. I hoped my guitar teacher would have a solution. I’d come to see her as a sort of wise woman; an auntie of musical persuasions.

“My left arm and hand really hurt,”  I said during my next lesson. Truthfully the dull hurt had started to become a throbbing pain that was now going up to my left shoulder. “I think I’m just using this side a lot. You’re left-handed too, yeah? What do you suggest I do during this time while I’m in school and need to use my left hand to write a lot?”

She didn’t skip a beat. “Learn to write with your right hand!”

She said it with a hint of condescension like I was stupid for not having thought of it myself.

“Oh. Okay, I will have to… give that a try,” I said, disheartened. She couldn’t be serious, could she? It’s not like I chose to write with my left hand. How could it be as simple as choosing to write with my right hand?

I really did try it, but it was useless. I couldn’t write a word with my right hand, let alone notes and sentences and paragraphs.

I had to keep going the way I had been.

my first electronic (read: no guitar or live instruments) performance, somewhere in Vermont, 2010. Photo by Jane Sweatt.

After I graduated, I expected the pain to subside on its own within a few weeks, but it got worse. For the next year it was so bad there were nights I had trouble sleeping. I talked to many musicians about it. Finally, a violinist who had toured and recorded for over 40 years suggested that I had nerve damage. “You have done the same couple actions so many times, and overused certain parts of your arm in the process. The only way to experience relief is to completely stop doing those actions.”

I looked down at my right hand. I had kept my fingernails long and curved for plucking for many years. My left-hand nails were always short for pressing strings onto the neck board. I was used to typing like this, used to the difference in sensation when I would use both my hands. I loved sitting down to practice and learn new pieces, even if I wasn’t planning on being a concert player.

Could I let this go? How long would I need to stop for? Would I be okay without it? Would my college guitar teacher somehow find out and call me and berate me for not following her learn-to-write-with-your-right-hand advice? How much shame could I endure?

my first time troubleshooting Ableton Live during a soundcheck, Brooklyn, 2012. Photo by Clyde Rastetter.

Eventually, the pain became so bad I had to stop playing for years. Sometimes I would forget the pain and would pick up a guitar for a little while and regret it later. I was so sad to not play as much as I wanted. But unbeknownst to me, my guitar time was being replaced by audio time. I was buying books, downloading programs, going to classes, and spending hours upon hours learning the ins and outs of digital audio technology. I was starting to create sounds I had never heard before, using them to create soundscapes I’d never interacted with before, and writing lyrics and melodies I’d never think up before.

Unknowingly, a  new world was opening up to me.

The Best Response

This week I was once more asked a question that has been a recurring theme during my career. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked to comment on why there aren’t more women in the music business, and my answer has always been the same – I’m the wrong person to ask because I am a woman in the music business. I can’t comment on why someone wouldn’t want to be a part of this, for the very reason that I wanted it more than anything. I’m fortunate to be able to say that after 23 years in the industry I’ve done everything I set out to do and quite a few things that I didn’t. I’ve toured with numerous theatre, arena and stadium productions; mixed monitors for bands whose albums I had as a kid; run sound for the Queen at Buckingham Palace; been paid to travel the world; and been in charge of monitors at the world’s biggest greenfield festival. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, but neither has it been the sexism-infused nightmare that some people seem to imagine. Indeed, some people seem almost disappointed when I tell them it really hasn’t been that bad, and it has me wondering: is it this idea of victimisation that puts some women off?

Now it’s possible that I walk around with my head in the clouds and don’t notice sexist behaviour, but I think it’s more likely that I’ve simply learnt to pick my battles. If I called a tribunal every time someone made a sexist crack I’d be in court for the rest of my life; but there’s a world of difference between sexist cracks and true misogyny. Tribes of people (i.e. a crew) naturally seek out what is different about a newcomer and zero in on that to test them. A smart newcomer will give as good as they get in return, show themselves to be a valuable commodity to the existing tribe, and in doing so establish common ground and become accepted. It would be a mistake to think that cracks are made simply because I’m a woman; anyone who’s heard crew banter will know that it can be brutal between guys, and the only reason gender is raised is because it’s the most obvious difference.

I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve encountered true misogyny. Whilst I did speak up for myself at the time, in every case, I also found that the best possible response is simply to prove them wrong.

One odious production manager told me I’d never make it unless I learnt to open my legs. My satisfaction upon seeing him at an industry event many years later, wearing a badge stating my position at the PA company I worked for and having very much made it without doing any such thing, was immense. I didn’t need to say anything – the look that passed between us said it all.

Not long ago I ran into someone who bullied me for a period of time in my early days. Back then he was senior to me (though not by much) and was fond of telling me how useless I was. But now, many years later, the status quo was reversed, and I was in a very much senior position to him. It made me realise just how far I’d come, and that bullies are, as we all know, just fearful cowards. I considered taking him to task in defence of my younger self but decided against it. He now cut such a pathetic figure that I felt no need to make explicit who was the winner here – it was obvious.

And the sorry behaviour from a couple of local crew whom I encountered in the States just seems laughable now, as it did then – how sad, to have to get your fun by trying to tear others down. I’ll bet their lives aren’t a barrel of laughs – after all, people who are secure in their own talents just don’t do that. How small they must feel, in their quieter moments. Not to mention having the entire visiting crew now think you’re a complete idiot. (Wait, you didn’t think I’d keep their nonsense to myself did you? Oh, their cracks were far too amusing not to share them with my compatriates – and the guys on a tour soon become like brothers who are very much on their sister’s side!)

So my point is this: if a young woman likes the idea of a career in live music, she shouldn’t worry too much about being in the gender minority, because she’ll quickly get used to it, and most guys are decent folk. The things for her to concern herself with are working hard; learning all she can about her chosen field; forging alliances; and yes, building resilience and comebacks to wisecracks. Learning to tell the difference between crew banter and abusive behaviour is important because the former is far more common than the latter. On the (hopefully) rare occasion that she does experience abusive or inappropriate behaviour she should always call it out, whilst also knowing this: that the best response she can ever give to her detractors is simply to prove them wrong.

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