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How I Learned To Play Guitar

I grew up in a rural area outside a logging town in northwestern California, and I wanted to play guitar ever since I could remember. I did have a sense of how great it might feel to perform and sing, but I had no idea how long, convoluted, and confusing the path could be.

I am pretty sure my original inspiration to play guitar came from hanging out at hippie barbeques which usually featured homemade music, a few folks picking or strumming and everyone singing folk songs. Inspired by Pete Seger and the mid-century folk revival, my dad had bought a banjo and learned a couple songs (“This Land Is Your Land” and “Skip To My Lou” to be exact). One of my earliest memories was of my dad picking both of those songs his banjo on the porch with a few of his friends. I was amazed. I was hooked.

At that young age, I don’t think I knew the difference between a guitar and a banjo. But I got hung up on guitars. I was soon pouring through the Sears catalog and coveting the brightly-finished guitars on the musical instrument pages.

Then, Christmas of 1976, Santa brought me my first guitar, a Sears classical guitar. I was 8 years old, and it was one of the best Christmas presents ever! I can remember my first explorations in pushing the strings down and making sounds.

I was unaware, in my awe of adults playing folk songs, that they would push me into a different world altogether, a world in which only some would ultimately be deemed worthy to publicly perform music: those who were “musically talented.” And that talent was determined by one’s ability to imitate, precisely, music written by others.

My mom, a classical music fan, signed me up for lessons, because that’s how it was done. So unfortunately, I learned to read music right away. I plucked out the introductory songs in the Mel Bay classical guitar book, but quickly grew frustrated. I quit after “Ode To Joy,” the last song in that book. I now believe that the act of reading music engaged the wrong part of my brain. The lessons confused me, because though I enjoyed making progress, I didn’t see myself heading to that place of performing folk songs on the back porch, and I was completely unaware that there might be multiple valid approaches to an instrument. I just knew that what I was experiencing was not what I had envisioned.

Nonetheless, I played off and on into my teens. The next teacher had the good sense to drop the classical stuff and back off the music reading (it seems he may have had to convince my mother about the validity of this approach) and teach me about chords and associated music theory. At age 12 I got a good quality steel-stringed acoustic Takemine. Subsequent teachers showed me some 70s pop, “moderate rock,” and the Dorian mode. My acoustic guitar strings kept buzzing because a guitar store owner, afraid the steel stings would hurt my girly fingers (wrong! everyone gets callouses, even girls), or that my hands were too weak to finger the chords (also wrong) had set the string action much too low. I thought the inescapable buzzing was yet another sign of my lack of talent.

I guess my self-esteem was pretty bad at that point and all my self-image issues were reflected in my approach and attitude toward music. I really didn’t understand the nuances of musical practice, advancement and plateaus, muscle training, etc., nor did anyone in my family. (My dad’s two-song affair with the banjo was long over.) Still, I had grown attached to my guitar; it was becoming part of my identity. I think because my mother didn’t see my guitar playing as “important,” she tended to leave me alone and spared me lot of the pressure my musically talented brother suffered as he practiced the far-more-important piano.

At age 14 my friend Michelle played me some Dead Kennedys and, inspired by the energy and the intelligence and the audacity of the lyrics, I decided I was a punk rocker. Punk helped me feel a sense of belonging, and it helped me channel my soul-crushing depression into rage and artistic energy, and I knew now for sure I wanted to play rock n’ roll. However, I wasn’t sure how to do this, and no one wanted to help me get on that path. The situation was further complicated because by now my lack of “musical talent” was firmly established. “Your brother is good at music,” the rap went, “while you are good at drawing and and other things.” Still, I loved music, especially rock n’ roll. I saved my money and bought myself an electric guitar. Eventually I got a teacher to show me a Chuck Berry riff. That’s what I wanted. More of that.

With rock guitar, it helps to be shown a few tricks. Most of the basic rock guitar techniques, from how to cradle the neck to how to play power chords, were a mystery to me. I played my punk rock with full bar chords.

I practiced by myself, in my room, using an old reel-to-reel tape player for an amp, training for the speed that was required in an early 80s hardcore band. I thought no one ever heard me play so I was pretty surprised when a couple decades later, one of my little brother’s old grade school friends, now a luthier, told me that he used to sit in my brother’s room and listen to me play, that he liked the way I sounded, and that I was the first guitar payer he ever heard use distortion. Unbelievable!

I tried writing a song — it was an angry song about a skater boy who made me mad because of the way he talked about girls. Mostly I fantasized about playing with someone else, or getting into a band as a rhythm guitar player (like my idol John Lennon), but I couldn’t seem to make it happen. The girls weren’t into it and the boys didn’t seem to want to play with me. I’d been working on it a fairly long time so it was frustrating to see the boys form punk bands within three months of picking up an instrument. This was 1983. At that point, I really began to believe that “they” were right about me. I lacked talent. Otherwise, why would would my interest in guitar be completely ignored, even by my friends in the punk rock crowd?

I do think if any of my female friends at the time could believe that THEY could play, or really wanted to, the story would have gone a bit differently. But I never was around women who wanted to be in, or form, a band. We’d joke about it, but no one would dare take it seriously. Even I was terrified to really admit it’s what I wanted to do. Not only did I want to be in a band, but I wanted it to be an all-girl band, with everyone singing, like the Beatles, and to be HUGE, like the Beatles. This was a deep dark secret. I remember being scared to even write about it in my journals. No other girls played guitar or drums and as far as I knew, there were two all-girl bands in existence: The Go Go’s, and Josie and the Pussycats. But despite the fact that Josie and the Pussycats had been the first to put the idea in my head that girls could play rock music, they weren’t real, their show was sexist and occasionally racist, and their music was awful. The Go Gos were good, but a bit too pop, too “girly girl” for me.

Later I got into 60s girl-group pop, but to me rock n’ roll was writing your own songs and playing your own instruments. My real musical role models were all the usual suspects, all men, from Woodie Guthrie to Jello Biafra.

Sometimes I wondered what might have happened if I’d gotten to go to Evergreen College, like I wanted. Would I have found other women to play music with? I didn’t care much about college, but both my parents were teachers, so I was going. I had no idea there was a music scene in Olympia, I just liked the idea of a hippie school that didn’t give grades and of living in a small town just outside of my dad’s hometown of Seattle, where I had seen a few touring bands play. Citing “out of state tuition,” mom nixed Evergreen.

http://youtu.be/vtjhGVD1ajQ

I didn’t quit playing music “for good” until I moved out of my parents’ home and my mother refused to let me have any of my guitars, even though I’d bought the electric guitar with my own money. It was a control thing, something to do with she didn’t like my boyfriend… nor did she like subsequent boyfriends. A few years later, living in Minneapolis, I borrowed a guitar and tried to jam with this guy, and he just laughed at me for being so shitty, for even THINKING I could play — his girlfriend informed me I couldn’t sing, either. Being as this was only the second chance I’d had to jam with another guitar player, and I admired this guy and wanted to be his peer, the humiliation was pretty huge.

What was the point in trying? Who wants to be laughed at?

There were things I was good at, and music obviously wasn’t one of them. It was 1989 and I was 21 when I finally stopped thinking I’d ever play in a band. After all, I thought (avid reader of rock biographies that I was, and am), at 21, the Beatles were rocking the clubs in Hamburg, while I had no band, no talent, and no guitar! It was time to accept reality. Clearly, by giving up music, I was doing the world a favor. I told myself that, and I made myself believe it. I moved on. I went to college, had a daughter, and focused on my role as a parent and breadwinner. I absolutely would NOT attempt play guitar after that, or sing in public. By now the thought of performing on guitar or singing was terrifying. Impossible to visualize, even.

But in the world, things were changing.

In 2000 I was a 32-year-old single mother with a four-year-old daughter. Looking for work as a web developer, I moved to Portland, Oregon, only to find that Portland is a town where it seems EVERYONE is in a band. I would watch my (male) friends in bands and sometimes find myself in tears, because deep down, I still wanted to be part of it. I’d been out of all urban “scenes” and living a pretty isolated backwoods life since 1990, so I was largely unaware of the shifts that had happened in underground rock during the previous decade.

Around my 33rd birthday, I decided to ask for my guitars again, as I had every few years or so since 1990. Amazingly, this time, my mother returned them. I don’t know why she really kept them from me, and I don’t know why she finally returned them, but I immediately started to play. Thinking, “I want my daughter to experience music hands-on,” I bought a little practice amp and picked up where I’d left off, but this time with a new attitude. I decided right away that I no longer cared about “talent.” I decided that “talent” didn’t even matter, that what matters, in fact, is passion and commitment. I knew that if I kept on the way I’d had been, I’d go to my death with some serious regret. It was time to take this as far as *I* wanted, regardless of what anyone else thought. I had thought I was playing for my daughter, but really, I was doing it for myself.

That change from a focus on talent and skill to a focus on passion and expression was a huge and important mental switch. I was finally giving myself what no one else had quite given me: permission to play guitar on my own terms. And more than that, I gave myself permission to “suck.” And with permission to suck comes the ability to rock, and to overcome all the fears and insecurities that had been holding me captive.

I had begun to understand, also, by this point, a lot more about psychology behind art. I remembered when I was a kid, my friends would tell me, “I can’t draw,” and I would say, “anyone can draw!” I knew it was just a matter of practice and learning to see and to trust your instincts. So I thought, “what if it’s true of music, too? What if anyone can make music?” I also knew by then that artistically frustrated people often try to put down or discourage other artists, so I decided I wouldn’t internalize other people’s negative projections about my abilities or my right to put time and energy into music. I’d focus on what I knew in my heart to be true: that I have just as much right to rock as Mick Jagger does. Maybe even more.

It was all easier said than done, of course. Progress was slow.

I vividly remember the first time I tried to play, again, with another human — a couple other girls. I forced myself, but as I lifted my guitar out of the case, I was literally shaking and fighting tears. There was an unbelievable amount of repressed baggage and fear to play through every time I took another step forward, but the feeling of accomplishment that comes from taking each step kept driving me forward. At first I hoped one day I’d get good enough to play at a cover tune an open mic. I tried to visualize it…. and eventually I did it. At my first open mic I played and sang The Ramones “I Wanna Be Well” on acoustic guitar. I sang it, and I meant it.

And I also played a Cramps-inspired “Green Door,” and when I sang it, I was singing about rock n’ roll.

There’s an old piano
And they play it hot
Behind the green door
Don’t know what they’re doin’
But they laugh a lot
Behind the green door
Wish they’d let me in
So I could find out
What’s behind the green door

At first, I could never in a million years imagine I’d get to a point where I’d be on stage regularly, performing and recording original music, but that changed quickly. I imagined it, and then I did it. It helped to see other women doing it too. A lot had changed since the 1980s. One day a girl burned me a copy of some Babes in Toyland songs. It brought back memories of Minneapolis, and after hearing the “Quiet Room” on a road trip to California, at 5 am, I pulled over into a McDonald’s parking lot, grabbed my acoustic guitar out of the trunk, and wrote a song-poem called “Dust Princess.”

And I remember completely rethinking my understanding of lead playing one night after stopping by the Crystal Ballroom, standing close, and watching Carrie Brownstein’s unusual, choppy, irresistible leads in Sleater-Kinney.

I bought a big 1970s Fender Twin Reverb (“Are you sure you want that amp?” the salesman said, “that’s a very loud amp. It’s really made for using on stage.” “Perfect,” I replied). I got up the courage to audition for a few bands, but never succeeded in making the cut. So, since I was writing songs by now, I put an ad in the paper, found a drummer, then a bass player, and started my own band. We lost and gained and lost members, suffered through triangles of love and addiction, and imploded again and again. I kept on playing, sometimes as a duo, or solo, just to keep moving forward. We recorded an album under fairly insane circumstances, and when we imploded for the last time, I kept my eyes and ears open for the next opportunity. Times came over the years when things looked bleak, and I would feel almost like giving up, but always someone would come along and say, “Don’t give up! Never give up!”

Today, because I didn’t give up (this time), I am fortunate to be part of a solid and productive band that has been performing for two years, has recorded and self-released two albums, and is working on a third. It’s been ten years since I was reunited with my guitars, and I am grateful to be here.

As far as being female, I wouldn’t think about it, except that it is constantly brought to my attention — for example, by doormen who cannot believe that I’m in, not with the band, as they scour the guest list for my name. Also the opinion that I “can’t play” or “can’t sing” is still brought up, more often to Chris, my boyfriend and bandmate. There are any number of people who are absolutely flabbergasted that someone like him, who is known as a skilled musician, would have a band with me, would “let” me play guitar and sing. Some assume he’s blinded by love, and that I’m just a coattail-rider. Many assume that he does all the writing for the band, too.

In reality, we each write our own songs, or we co-write: he’ll come up with a couple riffs, and I will write the lyrics and arrangement. We just fit together in a complimentary way. We both know that great rock music has less to do with “skill” and “talent” and more to do with a person’s ability to use music as an artistic medium. One person even told me he thought Chris (who struggled over the years with addiction) was back on drugs because his guitar playing has changed so dramatically. Instead of impressing other guitar players with fast skillful leads (which he can play in his sleep), he is playing more like me: more primitive, syncopated, dissonant — because it serves the song, and it sounds great! Maybe “girls” tend to play a little differently — maybe what a lot of guys are listening for, they don’t hear when girls play, so they just decide that we can’t play. Maybe a lot of people are missing out on interesting possibilities.

In my experience, discrimination against women in rock is still pervasive, both on the surface and underneath, even today, even in a town like Portland, Oregon. But rock and roll, to me, is about breaking rules, challenging preconceptions, and crossing psychological, physical, and cultural barriers. It’s about making sounds that are real, beautiful, original, and universal. It’s about joining people together through voice, breath, heartbeat, sound.

Recently, I was telling my grandmother (90) about some of my daughter’s explorations into music, when my grandma stopped me mid-sentence, asking “is she talented?” I was caught off-guard — there it was again, that strange notion of musical “talent.” I smiled. Of course she is talented.

I’ve found that for every person who thinks I can’t, or shouldn’t, sing or play, there is someone, usually a woman, who tells me how inspired she is by what I am doing. Inspire. The root of it means “to breathe.” Inspire originally meant to “breathe life into.” That’s a big part of what art is to me: inspiring others, and being inspired by others. I love it, I get to be part of it, both giving and receiving. I would never have made it to this place without facing my fears, processing the past, and playing through a lot of trials from both without and within.

That is why I would say to all girls and women, including myself, who want to play or perform, and who feel hesitant, fearful, or discouraged: DO IT. DON’T GIVE UP. Play the way YOU want to play, write how you want to write, and record how YOU want to record. Give yourself permission to experiment, and to devote energy to music. You have the right to be up on stage, you have the right to use your voice, you have the right to channel your creativity through music. Don’t let anyone make you believe otherwise.

http://youtu.be/YG9CC3HMVaQ

• Posted on July 12, 2009May 13, 2026