Women that love playing guitar will be happy to know that there’s now a guitar design that’s a better match for their bodies. And we have Annie Clark to thank for that. Her love for guitars can is evident when she describes the instrument as her life – the shield, weapon and vehicle that has given her an incredible life as an artist. You might know her as St. Vincent. But if you don’t, here’s an introduction:
Photo by Ernie Ball/YouTube.
Now, if you’re not familiar with her music, there are two things you should know: 1. It’s suuuuuuuper catchy, and 2. She knows how to absolutely shred on the guitar. Via UpWorthy
St. Vincent rocks hard, and that’s one of the things we love about her. She’s so insanely talented that Rolling Stone called the Grammy-winning artist “the smartest indie-rock star of her generation” in 2014.
Annie Clark—who uses St. Vincent as her stage name—is a lady rocker, yes, but she’s created a signature sound that totally transcends gender. And she definitely doesn’t believe that being a woman should inhibit her shredding abilities in any way. “If you have a great instrument you’re going to play better,” she told Guitar World. So St. Vincent teamed up with esteemed guitar-maker Ernie Ball Music Man to design a guitar that fits the female body far better than the models that are on the market. Via Hello Giggles
There are a lot of gender-specific products in the world today that don’t really serve a functional purpose, as Parker Molloy argues:
Clark sits down with a team from Ernie Ball during the design stage of the guitar’s creation. Photo by Ernie Ball/YouTube.
When you think of a “women’s” version of a product, what comes to mind? Pink, purple, flowers, butterflies — stuff like that? It’s kind of (very) ridiculous and, honestly, usually pretty pointless. Do we need pens for women? Or razors? Or the host of other lady-specific products? Most of the time, they’re completely unnecessary. Like, why do earplugs need to be gendered anyway? Via UpWorthy
But that’s not the case with St. Vincent’s guitar. Not only is the instrument light, it also comes with an extra-thing waist and more room for the female chest. So what motivated her to design the new guitar?
For one, a good amount of her year can be spent on the road, requiring hours of guitar-playing every night. She quickly realized that playing classic guitars was simply not practically despite the fact that she had fallen in love with them.
“For me a guitar that is not too heavy is really important because I’m not a very big person,” St. Vincent said to Guitar World. “I can’t even play a Sixties Strat or Seventies Les Paul. I would need to travel with a chiropractor on tour in order to play those guitars. It’s not that those aren’t great guitars, but they render themselves impractical and unfunctional for a person like me because of their weight.” Via Hello Giggles
The guitar is also made with smaller handed players in mind, which further makes it suitable for a lot of female players. But that does not mean the guitar is just for women. To emphasize this, the guitar doesn’t come in pink. In fact, the new shape and design offer a new set of solutions that guitar players from both genders that have been previously ignored in the past will appreciate.
In addition to being lighter, it has a minimal layout that includes a volume knob, a tone knob and three mini-humbuckers. It also has five different sound configurations to enable it maintain output and flexibility while offering the player a more comfortable playing experience.
The St. Vincent Signature isn’t exclusively for women, though. “I wanted to make something that looked good and not just on a woman, but any person,” said Clarke. Still, its viability as an alternative option for female rockers is an exciting advent for a music industry that’s historically male-centric. Via Nerdist
The design is just as impressive, with a stunning modern-meets-retro silhouette available in black and a eye-catching shade of blue inspired by a ’67 Corvette mixed by St. Vincent. The guitar, dubbed the ‘St. Vincent Signature Ernie Ball MusicMan Guitar’, was debuted to the public at a Taylor Swift concert.
Taylor Swift, Beck & St Vincent - "Dreams" Clip at Staples Center
“That was really fun and really wild because I’m used to playing for crowds,” she continued in the interview. “But to walk onstage and be in front of 35,000 screaming fans, most of them girls…” Via Nerdist
Whenever anyone talks about female guitarists, there always seems to be a debate. She’s good for a female or how good could she really be? Yet over the years there have been plenty of women that have held their own and even surpassed the men they play with. So this is a salute to the top 5 female guitarists of all time.
Orianthi
At first glance, Orianthi could easily pass for some slightly punk alt-rock singer who can jam on guitar, but she’s far from a docile pop princess. Via Bohemian Guitars
Lost Liverpool #5: Girls with guitars – The Liverbirds, Britain’s first all female rock band
In the fifth Lost Liverpool, Getintothis’ Paul Fitzgerald investigates the story of four Liverpool girls who went to late 60s Hamburg to make their rock dreams come true, and had such a good time, they never came home.
As Liverpool’s music scene enjoys yet another fresh renaissance, ever developing and reinventing itself, there can be fewer indicators of the health of the city’s music than the positivity of having so many women involved. The music of this city, known for a disproportionate amount of time for its ‘gangs of lads with guitars’ limitations, is undergoing a regrowth, and a welcome turn about as more and more women front, play in, manage, and follow the music. Via Get Into This
The Recent Rise of Female Flamenco Guitarists
Women’s rights, like democracy, came relatively late to Spain. Franco’s “National-Catholicist” regime held back many social reforms—divorce was only finally legalized in 1981, and abortion as recently as 2010.
So it should come as no surprise that the world of flamenco has rarely been a bastion of equal opportunity for women, particularly given its close links with the socially conservative Gypsy community. This has been most apparent among guitar players. Female guitarists—tocaoras—have existed only as a tiny, uncelebrated minority. Until now, that is. Via Classic Guitar Magazine
Whenever anyone talks about female guitarists, there always seems to be a debate. She’s good for a female or how good could she really be? Yet over the years there have been plenty of women that have held their own and even surpassed the men they play with. So this is a salute to the top 5 female guitarists of all time.
In the fifth Lost Liverpool, Getintothis’ Paul Fitzgerald investigates the story of four Liverpool girls who went to late 60s Hamburg to make their rock dreams come true, and had such a good time, they never came home.
Women’s rights, like democracy, came relatively late to Spain. Franco’s “National-Catholicist” regime held back many social reforms—divorce was only finally legalized in 1981, and abortion as recently as 2010.
