Just a quick public service announcement on behalf of my friend Pia Nyström (co-founder of the kickass all-female Swedish band Ice Age).

Pia has informed me that Ice Age’s former (like, waaaay former) manager is illegally selling vintage Ice Age demos in an attempt to make a few quick bucks. The illegal demos are being released on the label “Nemesis International.” According to Pia, Ice Age never signed a record contract with Nemesis or any other label, and thus nobody has the right to sell the demos except Ice Age themselves.

Pia and the rest of Ice Age don’t want to see people turning over over any hard-earned cash to this crook, so they have made their entire demo collection available for FREE DOWNLOAD on Vuze.com. Just search for the keywords ICE AGE DEMO COLLECTION, or click this handy [and updated] link here.

This is an example of the kind of slimy music management trick that I really hate hearing about.

azhantae@crappymailhost.com, you need to check your spam filter. I have replied to ALL your mails, even the last totally snotty one.

Life is too short, I tell ya…

GP: What do you tell fans when they ask you for advice?

MF: I tell them to stop practicing and start playing music. Play with your band, your buddies, and any other instrument you can. Play in the studio, play live – play all the time. The weakness is getting too hung up on technique. The strength is being able to play along with other musicians. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. In fact, make even more mistakes. When you do something cool, take note. And don’t do anything in the nature of practicing a technique.

GP: But aren’t you considered a technical player?

MF: Yes, but only if “technical” means that I have my own style – not that I’ve mastered “book” techniques. I can sit in with any musician in the world and nail something with them, because I’ve been playing music for so long. But if someone were to ask me to play the Mixolydian mode at a metronome setting of 200, I probably couldn’t. I never had the interest in doing such a thing, and, for the record, I dislike difficult-sounding guitar music. You’re not going to wind up in the studio with Paul McCartney one day, and hear him say, “Alright mate, can you play some of those arpeggios a little faster?” There’s no reason to get stuck on stuff that won’t have any real-world application. I’d even go as far as to say that if any technique has a name on it – like “string skipping” – beware! You can do wonderful sweep picking in your bedroom, but if you play it inside a song, you can’t follow changes, and it’s absolutely useless. Learn to master rhythm. Rhythm guitar builds songs – not technical acrobatics. [My italics -- LL]

Okay, so…screw technique — just jam, dude, and everything will magically sort itself out.

Huh?

Perhaps he’s been “creatively (mis)quoted” in the article, but in reading this my first reaction is, “WTF?”

Okay, if you’ve already put in years of practice so that you can effortlessly play anything you want, perhaps you’ll do fine by just jamming and playing rhythm. But given that few guitarists approach regular technical practice with anything like boundless enthusiasm, I hope beginning and intermediate guitarists won’t take Marty’s anti-technique advice as a good excuse to NEVER practice technique. That would just be dumb.

You have to remember that Marty is speaking from the perspective of an accomplished artist with years of high-intensity experience under his guitar strap. I can guarantee that if you’d been a Dorito crumb on the floor of Marty’s bedroom back before the Cacophony days, you would have seen him practicing at least SOME technique. I’ll bet he even had names for them. But with his many years of experience perhaps he’s come to realize that, while practicing technique is important for musical development, many guitarists totally neglect to develop other important aspects of musicianship. Now that is a view that I can support!

Technical facility plays a huge role in enabling you reach your ultimate level of artistic expression on your instrument. And it doesn’t come easy: current research on human learning and mastery suggests that it takes an average of 10 000 hours of practice (over approximately 10 years) to master ANY difficult skill — from Chess to Violin — even for so-called prodigies. Even Mozart, the quintessential prodigy, didn’t produce anything noteworthy until after about 10 years of practice. That’s right — if you want to be really freaking awesome at something, be prepared to devote 10 000 hours to developing your skill. So until you’ve reached the technical nirvana of effortlessly being able to play whatever the heck you want, I don’t see any solid reason not to make regular technical practice part of your routine.

I speak from bitter experience. Until just recently, I’d never practiced technique in any systematic way, always having been far more interested in “practicing” by improvising melodies — trying to play the things I hear in my head. But having seen how much just a couple of weeks of focused practice has helped my playing, I am kicking myself in my metal butt for not starting sooner. And honestly, my current interest in practicing technique is not driven by some banal “Duuuude, I just wanna play fast” mentality. I don’t even like “shred guitar” music; I’d much rather hear a player like David Gilmour, Gary Moore or Michael Schenker play a heart-rending melody or bend a note expressively. Any day, no freaking contest. But my recent foray into technical practice is making it easier to get what I hear in my head to come out of the guitar. Mirabile f’n dictu! I’ve always been frustrated by the wonderful sounds I can hear in my head but don’t have the skills to play. But now, while I doubt I’ll ever really reach the state of effortlessly playing anything I can imagine, it’s a real kick to realize that something as simple and easy to do as technical practice can yield such welcome results.

If you ignore the lame advice about technical practice being baaaad, Marty does offer some excellent points. There are so many guitarists who focus on technique (i.e., playing fast and clean, widdle widdle widdle widdle) to the degree that they don’t have much else to offer — unless you happen to like “difficult-sounding guitar music.” And I suppose that to that I just have to say, “fair enough!”

I turned to the mighty oracle for the answers to two questions:

1) Does anybody even make guitars for girls?
2) Do they come in pink?

Here’s what the oracle told me:

1) Yes, some manufacturers build guitars specially for girls.
2) Yes, they come in pink.
3) But you’re not gonna like ‘em.

It turns out the oracle was right on all three counts.

Upon further investigation I discovered what appears to be a massive gap between what the guitar manufacturers THINK girls want, and what girls (well, girls like me anyway) actually DO want. For example, which one of the guitars below do you think exists in real life?

In case it isn’t obvious, the guitar on the bottom is real, but the one on the top isn’t. It’s the product of my wishful thinking and some quick’n'dirty photoshopping (it’s a discontinued 27-fret Hamer Californian, if you’re wondering).

Here’s the deal: With one notable exception (see my next post), all of the “guitars for girls” that I found look** like they would be total poo for serious playing (unless you’re serious about yer chord strummin’). In fact, even the online communities I’ve found that focus on female guitarists seem to be geared towards chord-strumming singer-songwriter types, or maybe “alternative” rocker GRRLs.

Before all you singer-songwriters and alt-rock GRRLs ignite your flame throwers, hear me out: I’ve got nothing against chord strumming or female singer/songwriters or rocker GRRLs. Hooray for all you and all you represent. But what DOES f’n bug me — and what guitar manufacturers just don’t get — is that these genres do not represent the pinnacle of musical aspiration for all girl guitarists.

Frankly, I am baffled by the closed-minded stereotypes that seem to drive the guitars-for-girls manufacturers’ product design: that girls like pink glitter and like strumming chords — they couldn’t possibly be interested in owning the ultimate metal shred guitar. Don’t believe me? Look at the following photos and tell me that these two manufacturers don’t have a rather narrow view of the kind of guitar a girl might actually want:
Daisy Rock Guitars

Fender (!)

Golly gee whiz, they sure are cuuuuute. All pink and purple and flowery and girlie. Some even sparkle like a cheesy MySpace glitter gif.

I have to admit that I’d love to try a Hello Kitty Fender for recording clean parts. Those guitars are beyond cute, and would probably work well for that purpose. But seriously, when it comes to “playing in anger,” would you be interested in any of those guitars? I’m not saying that you couldn’t shred on one of them. Of course it would be possible. The problem is that they are not designed with shredding in mind. Because they think girls don’t want that.

This raises the question: do girls see guitars primarily as fashion accessories? Or as toys, perhaps? I don’t think so. But most of the guitar models above look as if they were designed to appeal to this mentality. I think there is an untapped market out there for guitar manufacturers who want to take a different approach. Couldn’t they make just ONE model that invites technical “shred” guitar playing? I can’t be the only girl with tiny hands who would love to see that happen (and I’m not even into “shred”). Where are girlie versions of guitars like these:

Caparison Horus (drooooool!)

Tagima K1 (Kiko Loureiro Signature) Warning: annoying Flash website

Hamer Californian (no longer manufactured )

And another thing: for people with small hands, neck access is paramount. In fact, it’s one of the most important factors when choosing a guitar. But why do the girlie-guitar manufacturers not provide photos of the heel joint, like Caparison does?

Caparison Horus heel joint

Do they think that girls’ interest in a guitar begins and ends with assessing its sparkle factor? One can only make inferences based on how they present their products to prospective customers.

I do think the guitar makers mean well, but are merely misguided by the persistent stereotypes about girl guitarists (i.e. we’re just not interested in playing screaming, technical lead guitar). I guess they’ve not heard of the incredible Jennifer Batten.

One manufacturer claims to have “a desire to ‘level the playing field’ for dedicated female guitarists and bass players of all ages…” This is indeed a noble cause, and a welcome breath of fresh marketing air. But assuming that girls see guitars as cute fashion accessories that are good for strummin’ chords is probably not the most empowering way to level the playing field. And neither is viewing girls as perpetual beginners who need the lure of something cute, pink and sparkly to even want to pick up a guitar.

Guitar makers, you can do better.

Because I hate to end on a sour note, I saved the good news for last: to my great surprise and delight, there IS one manufacturer out there who seems to be on the right track. In fact, I am actually excited about what I saw on their website. More about them next time!

**[Disclaimer: I have not actually played any of these guitars because they aren't available in the shops where I live. But based on what I've seen, I wouldn't want to bug my local music shop to order any. But I regularly bug them about Caparison...]

That’s how I’m going to introduce myself from now on. In the past year I’ve killed or (seriously maimed) no fewer than 4 computers. Regular readers may remember my earlier account about killing my most recent desktop computer with my mighty metal toe. That was only the beginning. The other day at work, right in front of a bunch of clients, I switched on the super-ninja wide-screen hi-fi laptop, and somehow my computer-toxic destruct-o-matic thought rays of doom caused a malfunction: smoke billowed from the laptop’s AC adapter jack, whereupon it whimpered in protest, sputtered and died in a final puff of burned-out-circuit stench. (Killing yet another computer was pretty bad, but the realization that I’d be without my precious Google for the next 4 hours was actually worse.)

Now computer number 5, the rockin’ new machine I bought just a few months ago (to replace the one that my toe sent to an early demise), is doing really weird things and flipping me random blue-screen birds. I think it knows its days are numbered and wants to make sure to make my life hell before it succumbs to whatever it is I do to these darn machines.

Hint: if ever I ask to borrow YOUR computer, make sure to give me a polite-but-firm NO.

All I can say is IT’S ABOUT FREAKIN’ TIME.

But I hope the absence of “MISOGYNISTIC” from their list of abusive qualities above is just a careless oversight, and that misogynistic comments will be culled as well (and the perpetrators drawn and quartered). Then maybe female musicians can get some news posted about them without having to endure/ignore a free-for-all of invasive sexual insults and other abusive comments. (Newsflash to lowest-common-denominator Blabbermouth boneheads: “I’d pee in her butt” is not something most women are likely to take as a compliment.)

The only catch is that lamebrain commenters will now have to actually find something intelligent or worthwhile to say, which is most likely a Herculean task beyond the intellectual capacities of most of these sad little behind-pseudonym-hiding LOSERS. So they will probably just curl up and die a slow death somewhere, wallowing in their own negativity and pathological need to publicly bash others to make themselves feel better about their unfulfilling lives. I think we can survive without them.

I am really pleased about Blabbermouth’s new policy. Now maybe I can enjoy reading news about my fellow female musicians without depressing reminders of the rampant misogyny that still reigns in our society.

As someone who’s never understood why so many people feel the need to regale the world with their pathetic little opinions about artists they don’t like (jeez, why the heck do they even bother to READ articles about artists they don’t like?), as someone who had stopped reading Blabbermouth BECAUSE of the crap comments, all I can do is applaud Blabbermouth for taking this initiative.

I get an entire free day with nothing else to do but clean the apartment and work on music, and I can’t get stupid Line6 edit to recognize the Pod pro on my Audigy 2’s MIDI Port 1. I need to use MIDI port 1 (the one in the back) because if I use MIDI port 2, I will have cables coming out the front of my computer that the Clumsinator can trip over. And when the Clumsinator trips over stuff, stuff tends to get broken…

I can hook up my keyboard to MIDI Port 2 and it works fine (tried it in Sonar). The Pod works fine on MIDI Port 1. What gives? I’m pullin’ my hair out here, and getting crabbier by the minute.

If anyone out there knows how to fix this, you’ll be makin’ my day…