Meridian Music offers all-girl rock guitar classes

Acoustic rock guitar for women
Saturdays, beginning Jan. 13 at 2 p.m.
Meridian Music, 12725 Old Meridian St.; 317-575-9588; $85 for four weeks of class; provide your own acoustic guitar; all other materials included in class fee; visit www.meridianmusic.com to sign up

Michael E. Yachanin of the University of Hartford defines music as “sound organized into meaningful patterns that express human emotion.” The Grolier Encyclopedia goes on to call it the “most mathematical and the most abstract of the arts ...” Dave Morgan of Meridian Music has a more radical definition. “Music is change,” he says.

That is precisely what his aims are for his new acoustic guitar clinic at Meridian Music. He’s offering more than your typical guitar lesson or history of rock and roll class. This course is designed for women of all ages who are between beginning and intermediate in their playing, who already have a basic understanding of chord progressions within the first position and who want to know where they stand in the rock and roll world. The clinic focuses specifically on teaching the arrangements of contemporary and classic female artists — musicians like Joni Mitchell, Jennie DeVoe and Avril Lavigne.

As you can guess, boys are not allowed. Except for Morgan, of course.

A man who spent his childhood playing guitar, Morgan has also taught guitar for 14 years and has held countless seminars on the blues. The idea for this rock guitar course, oddly enough, came from someone with a little less musical experience and a completely different life experience — his 14-year-old daughter.

“We were coming back from an Avril Lavigne concert,” Morgan recalls, “and on the way home she asked, ‘Did you notice how many girls were there?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ [since] I was one of the few men there. And she asked me, ‘Why don’t you teach chords to these girls instead of just all the guys?’ She kinda called me out on it.”

In certain areas of study, over the years, there has been a glaring gender gap. Female students typically excel in areas of language and communication, where males excel in the math and sciences.

And in music?

Well, that’s interesting, considering that both music and math insiders see direct connections between the two. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ News Bulletin cites patterns, sequences, ratios, geometric shapes (for correct finger positions) and counting as being the foundation of music.

Harvey Reid of Woodpecker Records has more of a spiritual take on the matter, explaining, “When you are really doing mathematics, people, places and events of the world are a distraction from your work. And when you are really doing music, you [are] just as deeply involved ... in the music and the theory.”

Music, a historically male-dominated field throughout the genres, could very well be the much-needed bridge between the arts and the sciences. Perhaps if female students are encouraged to enroll in music classes and make music an active part of their lives, then math could naturally follow suit. If they find themselves makers of music rather than the objects in the music, perhaps they won’t have to market their bodies to promote their art.

Morgan admits, “The [music] business, academically, and even retail to a large degree, has always had this male, almost light-beer feel to it.”

He says that’s because it’s how it’s always been, not meaning that is how it will always stay. As rock has moved on, more women have stepped up to the mic and belted out their hearts and souls with the same ferocity and fervor as their male colleagues, and more women have been drawn to the classroom to learn about this complex instrument.

“I noticed though, when I taught at [IUPUI], the first four years I taught there, 80 percent of my students were men, but as time went on, I noticed that each year, more and more, to the point where it was 30 to 40 percent women, then it got to be 50, and, at one point, 60 to 70 percent of the enrollees in my courses were women. That’s saying a lot to me — that the demographics are finding a way to balance out a bit.”

For the times, they are a-changin’.

Unfortunately, it seems every time women garner any clout in the business, the boys hang out their “No Girls” sign. Take, for example, Lilith Fair, a music festival started in 1997, sending the explicit message that there are plenty of talented female recording artists who have a place in the business and in the lives of their listeners. It was a tour full of headliners like Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman and Fiona Apple.

Immediately following Lilith was Woodstock ’99. Almost overnight, the music scene shifted from soft serenades like Paula Cole’s “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” to testosterone-driven rock-rap. Songs like “Nookie” by Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock’s “Bawitaba” flooded the airwaves. The music atmosphere was primed for the catastrophe that was Woodstock that summer.

The women had had their say, and the men were going to fight back. Ann Powers, New York Times music critic, noted of the festival, “At the shows, women screamed their adulation for the very stars hurling invectives at them ... The women seemed to be reviving the role of the old-fashioned rock chick, who gained the right to be sexually expressive by running a gauntlet of degradation and scorn, and the men were all too ready to debase them.”

It is worth mentioning that as the post-Woodstock media uncovered the sexual assault reports, a few of the touring bands audibly voiced their objections — the most vocal being the Beastie Boys and Moby. “I think the mistake they made was in hiring misogynistic rock bands,” Moby said in an interview in Addicted to Noise. “I watched ICP in open-mouthed horror.”

Not all men are bad, and not all bands want to shut the ladies out every time they make headway. In fact, Morgan is well aware of the impact that Indy folk favorite Jennie DeVoe has on the community, saying that “There’s not a large event that they have in Indianapolis that Jennie doesn’t play at. That’s not an accident.”

Morgan is the first to admit that music is a tough industry requiring more than talent and hard work, but a lot of confidence. “The first thing I want [out of this class] is for them to be extremely comfortable walking into music stores and know that they belong. It’s not an end, it’s a beginning.”