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Dude, You Just Lost the Gig

#41
bigboy_78 said:
There are literally thousands of people who paly bass better than I do.

Why is the fact that some of them female worthy of its own thread?

The whole thing has a “not bad for a girl” vibe about it.
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Disagree very strongly. But I grew up in a New England family that had no problem with the idea a woman could excel at any endeavor as well as any man could. So I never felt the need for the whole “prove your PC” thing. Because I never saw things as being otherwise. If I see something egregiously biased or insulting you can bet I’ll speak up. I’ve even done it here on occasion. But I think you’re really reaching a bit with that argument.

And like it or not, gender isn’t something you can simply ignore without creating more problems than you solve. One reason so many issues women have to deal with have been dismissed or ignored over the years is because some people insist, in the name of “equality” or “fairness” that there are no gender differences whatsoever. So by that same logic, if something is a non-issue for the average man, then there’s no possible justification why it should be an issue for a woman either.

So be careful what you argue for. All swords are double-edged when it comes to gender issues and politics.

For myself, I’ll wait for a woman at TB to weigh in on this topic and state she’s offended rather than presume to know what she’s thinking and start “mansplaining” to my brethren.

But that’s me. We each call it the way we see it. :thumbsup:
 
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#51
I remember when Tal Wilkenfeld became an item. What can you say? "Hey look, here's this 19-year-old can cut my s--t six ways for Sunday." She's got the whole package: knowledge, facility, and taste. The others, they got chops coming out their ears, obviously, but I'd be very interested to hear any of these bedroom virtuosos, female or male, in a live band context.
 
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#52
Fletz said:
And the award for the most sexist, tone deaf thread on talkbass goes to ...
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And the award for the angry little PC guy who can't help but throw a grenade into a thread and walk away goes to.....

Best I can tell, the majority of posts so far have nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with bad@$$ players who just happen to be female.

At what point was the rule written that gender can no longer be discussed AT ALL??? Especially when complimenting the SKILLS of a given gender.

The very title of the thread implies "Move over men. Ladies with chops coming through." The whole point of the thread is to highlight females who have attained a higher level of professionalism in music than we have. The whole point is to share videos or list examples of females whipping our collective butts on bass. The WHOLE POINT is to say that we couldn't possibly win out in an audition against these players.

Who is supposed to be offended here? And why?

(...... other than you, of course. :bored: )

Yeesh....
 
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#56
Tracy Wormworth was playing amazing stuff before most TB member’s parents met. She’s had had a long, if not fairly quiet, career with the B-52’s, the Rosie O’Donnell Show, Sting, Cyndi Lauper, and a mess of other well-known figures in the competitive NYC scene. She did this in the real world, not on YouTube playing along with recordings.

Maybe we were doing it wrong, but us OG guys never called her a great African-American female bass player. We just called her a great player. The same thing applied to Sara Lee, Kira Roessler, Me’Shell N’degeocello, and Aimee Mann. Of course, this was back when a good player could just get by on being good, and didn’t need a bunch of definitions, descriptors and hyphens before their name to tell the right people it was “OK” to think they were worthy of regard.

 
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#57
two fingers said:
Who is supposed to be offended here? And why?
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To play devil's advocate here...

We have separate men's and women's sporting events because women are, on average, not as athletically capable as men. The best women in the WORLD struggle to compete with top high school boys in events that call for strength or endurance. When I was in college, I was far too slow to be a varsity runner at my little Div III school, but I was competitive with the top Div. I women in the country. So we separate women from men and give gold medals to the top women even though they are much slower and weaker than the top men.

Therefore, to separate out female bassists and hold them up for special scrutiny can be interpreted to suggest that women, as a group, are not as bass-ically capable as men. Or to paraphrase Johnson, "Sir, a woman's bass playing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

I'm not "offended." These women are WAAAAAAAY better than me, and that isn't an issue. But I do cringe a little when we talk about "women bass players" the same way we might talk about "male nurses." Unlike weightlifting, there's no good reason for us to be dividing musicians, or health care workers, up by sex. (There may be good reasons for the people themselves to seek a bit of recognition; female bass players and male nurses may have experiences and problems not shared by male bass players and female nurses. But as for the rest of us we'd do better to focus on their work than their plumbing).
 
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#59
BassUrges said:
To play devil's advocate here...

We have separate men's and women's sporting events because women are, on average, not as athletically capable as men. The best women in the WORLD struggle to compete with top high school boys in events that call for strength or endurance. When I was in college, I was far too slow to be a varsity runner at my little Div III school, but I was competitive with the top Div. I women in the country. So we separate women from men and give gold medals to the top women even though they are much slower and weaker than the top men.

Therefore, to separate out female bassists and hold them up for special scrutiny can be interpreted to suggest that women, as a group, are not as bass-ically capable as men. Or to paraphrase Johnson, "Sir, a woman's bass playing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

I'm not "offended." These women are WAAAAAAAY better than me, and that isn't an issue. But I do cringe a little when we talk about "women bass players" the same way we might talk about "male nurses." Unlike weightlifting, there's no good reason for us to be dividing musicians, or health care workers, up by sex. (There may be good reasons for the people themselves to seek a bit of recognition; female bass players and male nurses may have experiences and problems not shared by male bass players and female nurses. But as for the rest of us we'd do better to focus on their work than their plumbing).
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I see your point. But I thought focusing on their work was what we were doing.

At no point did this thread seem to go all "Awwwwww. Look at the cute little girl with the pretty bass playing 1/32 notes. Isn't she adorable?"

It seemed more like "Dang. I wish I could play like HER!" :D
 
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