ABSTRACT
Discourse on gender issues in jazz is not new, nor is it when considering rock guitar. Unfortunately, research into female representation in jazz guitar is, by comparison, limited. Despite the rich lineage of female jazz guitarists (from Mary Ford to Emily Remler and beyond), pedagogy is still very heavily organised around a male-centric hierarchy of jazz guitar. This has ramifications for the representation of females as learners, professionals, educators, and the uptake of the instrument more generally. The guitar itself is often a gendered instrument, as Dawe (2010) describes, especially in popular music. It is often discussed as an object of femininity, with the anatomy of the instrument analogised to that of a woman. Given that many contemporary jazz guitarists find their route to jazz through other forms of masculine dominant popular music, does this present even more barriers for young female musicians to overcome when developing a relationship with the guitar? This research combines analytical case studies, primary research, and a synthesis of existing gender research (not yet applied to jazz guitar), in order to create a new perspective on what we might call the jazz “guitarscape.”1 In doing so I also discuss—from a pragmatic perspective—the causal relationship between the gendered issues found within the guitar community and issues with historical pedagogy surrounding the guitar and jazz. Solutions and recommendations are made to hopefully begin to address some of the systemic issues explored in the research.
