About a year ago, our Madison, Wisconsin chapter of Girls Rock decided to offer a Ladies Rock weekend, after receiving so much interest from many mothers of girls in the Girls Rock program. I decided to sign up for the event this weekend, and I spent Friday from Sunday learning what it’s like to be a rock star.
On Friday morning at 9am I arrived at the site, a local music studio. There I met my fellow campers, a group of 11 women whose ages ranged from about 30-60. Our musical experience was all across the spectrum, from one woman who is a trained opera singer and performs in two local bands, to another who was about to turn 60, had never played an instrument, and who wanted to learn to play bass to perform at her 60th birthday party in February. We then chose what instrument we wanted to do for the weekend and were split up into 4 different bands. I decided to stick with guitar. The first day I brought my acoustic guitar, but it was clear pretty quickly that it was not going to be something I would use that weekend. The emphasis of the weekend is very much on amplified music. So although I’ve had a couple years of guitar experience, I actually felt like quite the newbie while learning to play my electric guitar. I was introduced to the world of power chords, muting and percussive strumming. The only thing I missed out on was a whammy bar.
The band I was grouped in had one woman who had never played an instrument and who came to learn bass and to possibly sing. The other was a woman who was a guitarist but who wanted to play drums. They had decided they wanted to do a “power pop” song, and I was pretty much game for anything. We had approximately 8 hours together (when we weren’t in workshops, instrument instruction sessions, or eating lunch) to compose the lyrics to a song, write music to it and get it polished enough to perform together live at a local venue on Sunday night. It was a challenge. To help us, we had various “band coaches,” local musicians who would help us when we got stuck. Or possibly break up fights if they occurred. I will say that, though it didn’t quite come to fisticuffs in our band, one of the biggest lessons I learned from the weekend is learning to get along as a group to get something done. There was simply not enough time to bicker over every detail.
By Sunday morning, I was exhausted and wondering how rock stars do it. I was sick of everyone around me. I was constantly hungry. My shoulder was sore from holding an electric guitar for hours, my back hurt and even my fingertips, which are considerably calloused already from playing for the past two years, were getting ripped up. I’d also developed a serious cramp in my left forearm from repeatedly playing the two power chords in the verse to our song. I was wondering if the performance that night would be a complete disaster. In the meantime, our bassist, who was also going to be carrying the vocal-load, was having a very hard time coordinating singing and playing (imagine trying to learn to do that well in 2 days). We broke up at 3, knowing that we had to be at the venue at 5 for sound-check, and then for our performance, starting at 7. I went home and changed into my rock star persona, wearing a black tank top, red velvet skirt and knee-high black leather boots. (We had a professional photographer at the show, and I will post some on-stage pics of me with my axe as soon I get them).
Around 6 we did our sound check, and I realized that being on stage means, in part, being aware of all the cords around your feet. I filed a mental note to myself to watch where I was walking. I really did not want to launch my life as a rock star by tripping over something on stage. You also need to be aware of how you’re moving. Swing around too fast and you might just hit someone in the head with the neck of your guitar. Or hit your mic. Or hit the drum set. It is tight quarters up there.
We went on stage a little after 7:30. Our band name was Exes with Axes (not my idea) and our song was entitled “You’re So Hot” (again, not my idea). The song was dreadfully catchy, and I spent most of last night after the show trying to exterminate this little earworm. As I am fond of my fellow TGers, I will not subject any of you to it. Playing on stage was a very surreal experience for me. With the spotlights on, it’s really hard to see anyone in the audience. That actually helped me with my performance anxiety; I could vamp and pose to my heart’s content and not worry about anyone’s reaction. I also found it remarkably hard to hear what I was playing. This may have been an issue with the amps, but it could just be that I’m not used to hearing my guitar amplified. That was a bit disconcerting, but I tried to just not worry about it. No one in the audience seemed to care (or know) if I played an F# instead of a Bm.
The rest of the night I got to listen to the songs that the other bands had written, and every group had created something totally unique and wonderful. I had a great time cheering on the women I’d met just a few days prior, many of whom I’d come to really like and respect. It was so inspiring to watch women pushing themselves out of their comfort zones and doing something they may have never imagined themselves doing. It was great to watch them put aside their self-esteem issues, their hang-ups, their prejudices about what they, as grown women “should” be doing or wearing, and just let themselves shine for a few minutes. And to be honest, it was awesome for me to be up there too.
Will we all go on to be rock stars? Most likely not. In fact, one of the lessons I took away from this weekend was that, while I enjoyed my brief foray into the world of electric guitars, I missed my acoustic guitar a lot. I had mixed feelings about power chords, which were useful, but seemed to me a bit
cheat-y. I missed strumming all 6 strings on my guitar. It’s cool to pound on those low strings and get that really gritty, percussive rock sound, but I missed the jangly sound of those high strings. And after strumming 3 days with only down-strokes, I started having folk-strum withdrawal. All the same, I came away from this weekend feeling energized and empowered. It’s good to be a rock star, if only for a night.
. It's such an experience!