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what is your opinion on Girl drummers?


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On 10/21/2021 at 9:58 PM, NokturnalBoredom said:

I think that women just don't like to play drums.

I think that's a dumb stereotype, it's more likely that its not an instrument that women are actively encouraged to pick up and keep playing long enough to get good. It's also a quite tricky instrument, regardless of gender, both in terms of cost, loudness and size (not counting digital kits who only recently have gotten affordable/good). Not to mention the challenges of actually playing.

I enjoy A. Morthaemer's work with Asagraum, she's got solid chops and never overplays the songs.

Asagraum - Leviathan.

Also Luana Dametto (Nervosa/Cryptae) is a sold fucking drummer, both for thrash and death metal. Just look how precise and relaxed she is.

Nervosa - Never forget never repeat.

Cryptae - From the ashes

 

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3 hours ago, Sheol said:

I think that's a dumb stereotype

It's backed up by real-world examples and numbers though. You can find female bass players and guitar players, keyboardists & vocalists definitely but female drummers are rare. None of the women I know who play music (and I know scores of them, like upwards of 30 different women in music) ever wanted to play drums, not even in high school marching band... it was always a guys instrument and the girls would play either woodwinds or brass. Girls tend to like orchestra more anyway in my experience, because it's more... idk, "refined" than marching band. I know one girl who played drums in marching band and she never got that into it enough to play behind a kit. The only female drummers I can think of offhand are Mercedes Lander and the girl who was in Nekromantix for a while when I saw them tour but that doesn't change the fact that female drummers are in the extreme minority because drums are typically seen as a guys instrument due to the fact that pretty much all of the renowned rock and metal drummers are men.

My sister works in the music industry and has brought it up before that women do not generally like to play drums because of the fact that the drummer is hard to see behind the kit. Which is why they tend to play guitar or bass (or in my sister's case, violin). Drummers tend to be men because of the jokes that we've all heard about drummers being dumb, sweaty, etc. (How do you know if the drummer's riser is uneven? Check which side of his mouth the drool is coming out of).

I have noticed that women tend to be bass players in a lot of cases. Never figured out why this was but I have my guesses based on the same reason why I prefer to play bass than rhythm or lead guitar... Women also tend to be keyboardists and piano players on a much higher incidence than men. I don't know how that's reflected in metal, because I can only think of a handful of them but this information comes directly from my sister who is a working musician as we've had this conversation before at holidays when she would tell me about the projects she was working on. She knows one woman who plays drums and says that she's good enough to get by in a punk band, but can't do much aside from the very basic patterns that punk music requires.

Female musicians don't generally tend to be that represented in metal anyway outside of vocalists. There are tons of them in indie rock, emo, alternative rock, hip-hop, punk and whatever else but metal is still a man's game for the most part based on what I know of the industry through my sister's stories. A lot of women who get into music are either session musicians or become idols/pop stars and that's just an undeniable fact because we can name them all off of the tops of our heads: Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue, Allison Goldfrapp, Jennifer Lopez, Pink, Avril Lavigne, et al. I know like two metal bands that are all women: Astarte and Kittie. The music is generally seen as too aggressive for a lot of women who want to make music, so they don't get involved in the genre because they'd rather make something more mellow.

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19 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

It's backed up by real-world examples and numbers though. You can find female bass players and guitar players, keyboardists & vocalists definitely but female drummers are rare. None of the women I know who play music (and I know scores of them, like upwards of 30 different women in music) ever wanted to play drums, not even in high school marching band... it was always a guys instrument and the girls would play either woodwinds or brass. Girls tend to like orchestra more anyway in my experience, because it's more... idk, "refined" than marching band. I know one girl who played drums in marching band and she never got that into it enough to play behind a kit. The only female drummers I can think of offhand are Mercedes Lander and the girl who was in Nekromantix for a while when I saw them tour but that doesn't change the fact that female drummers are in the extreme minority because drums are typically seen as a guys instrument due to the fact that pretty much all of the renowned rock and metal drummers are men.

My sister works in the music industry and has brought it up before that women do not generally like to play drums because of the fact that the drummer is hard to see behind the kit. Which is why they tend to play guitar or bass (or in my sister's case, violin). Drummers tend to be men because of the jokes that we've all heard about drummers being dumb, sweaty, etc. (How do you know if the drummer's riser is uneven? Check which side of his mouth the drool is coming out of).

I have noticed that women tend to be bass players in a lot of cases. Never figured out why this was but I have my guesses based on the same reason why I prefer to play bass than rhythm or lead guitar... Women also tend to be keyboardists and piano players on a much higher incidence than men. I don't know how that's reflected in metal, because I can only think of a handful of them but this information comes directly from my sister who is a working musician as we've had this conversation before at holidays when she would tell me about the projects she was working on. She knows one woman who plays drums and says that she's good enough to get by in a punk band, but can't do much aside from the very basic patterns that punk music requires.

Female musicians don't generally tend to be that represented in metal anyway outside of vocalists. There are tons of them in indie rock, emo, alternative rock, hip-hop, punk and whatever else but metal is still a man's game for the most part based on what I know of the industry through my sister's stories. A lot of women who get into music are either session musicians or become idols/pop stars and that's just an undeniable fact because we can name them all off of the tops of our heads: Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue, Allison Goldfrapp, Jennifer Lopez, Pink, Avril Lavigne, et al. I know like two metal bands that are all women: Astarte and Kittie. The music is generally seen as too aggressive for a lot of women who want to make music, so they don't get involved in the genre because they'd rather make something more mellow.

Sounds like a pretty shallow and surface level view of women, and their motivations. So women don't play drums because they don't get enough attention? Wtf? You could argue that one reason there's generally few women in metal is because it's historically been a boys club with women receiving very little encouragement to pick up an instrument and join, but receiving a hell of a lot more unwanted, sexist attention, belittling and outright hostility. Things that will actively drive most sane people away from engaging in a subculture. And when they do join it's usually as an afterthought to fill in on the instruments that's "left over" like bass or maybe keyboards. It's gotten better in the past 10-15 years but that's such a short amount of time it's hard to compare to the pop/soul/RnB world that have had a long and dominant history since at least the 60's. It was only a decade or so ago when the general consensus was that women wouldn't or couldn't sing in metal unless they did the "sweet" soprano thing over some dude growling. Women growling? Forget about it, they're not made for it. Now it's a lot more common, no one really bats an eyelid. But it took some really big stars like Angela Gossow and Alissa White-Gluz to give weight and credibility to it and to inspire young women. Were they the first? No, but they were certainly the most famous and well-known female growlers in the 00's.

There's also something to be said of positive role models. There's a reason there's more female mainstream artists, it's partly because they have seen themselves reflected in artist growing up, sparking the dream to themselves become an artist, and instilling the self-efficacy and confidence that that dream is within reach. Don't underestimate the power of sexism and preconceived notions on peoples motivations and what they think is their options in life.

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I'm not interested in getting into a whole bullshit woke/social justice conversation because this has literally nothing to do with whatever "views" of women that you want to believe that I have, I'm just stating what I already know & have been told from a woman who works in the music industry and has released albums, played concerts with artists like The Who, Machine Gun Kelly, and Dashboard Confessional, went to school and double-majored in audio engineering and performance, and supports herself by busking and playing sessions/gigs for regional bands.

Women do not play drums very often. This is straight from the mouth of a woman who has worked in the industry since she was 16. Women do not like to play drums because they often cannot be seen behind the kit and because of the stereotype that drummers are dumb, sweaty, and sloppy. Do women drummers exist? Of course, but they are more of the exception than the rule.

Matter of fact, I'll take it further and state that the idea that women "can't be growlers" is bullshit because Kittie's Morgan Lander was doing it almost thirty years ago already and Arch Enemy was a big thing for a while (although I never got into them, Lamb of God, or any of the commercial metal that was popular in the 00s). My point is that you don't tend to see a lot of female drummers not because women can't play drums, but because of the stereotypes about drummers that exist to begin with.

I know a grand total of like 5 female drummers: Neko Case (who is more famous for singing and guitar than drums), Mercedes Lander, Meg White, Roxy Petrucci, and Jen Ledger (skillet). Even the all-female black metal band Astarte didn't use a female drummer, they used guys for sessions and live work. Women have been vocalists and guitar players in hardcore and punk for ages, it's just that for some weird reason, not a lot of women like playing drums and the answer I got from my sister is the explanation I'm going to go with.

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This has nothing with being "woke" or whatever you mean by that, you're wildly mixing anecdotal stories, and personal opinions with statistical facts.

10 minutes ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

Women do not play drums very often. Do women drummers exist? Of course, but they are more of the exception than the rule.

This is stating a fact.

Quote

Women do not like to play drums because they often cannot be seen behind the kit and because of the stereotype that drummers are dumb, sweaty, and sloppy.

This is just anecdotal experience and guessing, I argued against this interpretation because I felt it was simplistic and frankly kind of insulting to all the women, musicians or not, that I know. You make it sound like they're some kind of shallow morons or something?

I think the main issue is that playing drums is fucking hard and quite difficault to master to a degree where you can play (extreme) metal. Few people make it that far, and the quota of women (who probably are fewer to start with given the genre) shrinks exponentially faster as well. And this is not counting all the other hurdles I mentioned in my previous post. I think these things have a greater effect on the outcome than the notion that "women don't like to be seen as dumb and sloppy". But I guess we can just agree to disagree.

That said, check out Asagraum, they're really fucking good!

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Women not liking to play drums because they can't be seen is a classic comment. As is the addition that they don't want to be dumb, sweaty, sloppy people. What next, women don't want to drive trucks or work in mines because not enough people realise women do manual jobs and so few people see how good they look doing them?

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3 hours ago, Sheol said:

I think the main issue is that playing drums is fucking hard and quite difficault to master to a degree where you can play (extreme) metal.


My guesses are just that: guesses based on what I've been told but I take my sister's assessments of the industry fairly seriously. My sister has said that the women she went to school with never had any interest in drums because of the stereotype that drummers are sweaty, sloppy, fat guys and that being a drummer makes them "come off as butch". She and I have had this conversation at Christmas before.

You don't tend to have a lot of women involved in extreme metal anyway for whatever reason. I can count the number of women I'm aware of in either death or black metal on my hands. Women tend to be more involved in punk and hardcore.








 

3 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

What next, women don't want to drive trucks or work in mines because not enough people realise women do manual jobs because it's all about how they look doing them?

They generally don't work in mines or drive trucks though and having worked in construction for the majority of my life, I can absolutely guarantee you that the majority of women do not do manual jobs. I know one woman who is an electrician and one woman who is a roofer. That's it, and I live in an area where construction is the average job to support a family on.

Women down here tend to become nurses, lawyers, or doctors. Those that don't become professionals work in retail or restaurants. We have far more women going to college down here than men, because men can get jobs in the construction fields. Jobs that women don't want to do because they're generally shit jobs. Construction is not a "good field" to be in anymore, because half of the time you get hired on as a laborer and stay a laborer because then you do not command more money from the contractor.

I have done plumbing, built and installed awnings, done electrical work, and installed windows and sliding glass doors. I have exclusively worked around men because women do not do construction unless they are drywallers or painters, and even then they are the exception rather than the rule.

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You 

26 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

I know about 15 female truck drivers, and a few of them have been doing it longer than I have. The power industry, the mining industry, the construction industry, all these are populated with women in this country. Sure men out number the women but it's not because they don't get seen so they don't turn up.

You know allot of people. 

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