Playing Her Guitar

Abstract

Abstract While previous chapters focus on female musicians’ use of feminine-branded consumer goods to elongate their careers, Chapter 6 investigates their opposition to gear’s implied masculine address by making instruments accessible to a wider range of players while showcasing women’s instrumental virtuosity. This chapter examines Annie Clark’s partnership with Ernie Ball Music Man Guitars under her alias, St. Vincent. In 2016, Clark became the first woman to develop a signature collection for the company. Clark used the partnership to problematize the electric guitar’s gendered address by designing a “gender-neutral” guitar that was meant to be accessible to feminine and gender-nonconforming players. It first contextualizes the industrial efforts to make the electric guitar more accessible to girls during Clark’s adolescence and their limitations. It then analyzes Clark’s promotional strategies for the collection. Most branding opportunities available to female music industry professionals interested in extending their commercial shelf life affirm conventionally feminine modes of creative self-expression, like fashion and cosmetics. Clark’s guitar challenges such gender essentialism by highlighting her own virtuosity as a queer musician, songwriter, and producer while giving players a different set of tools with which to create new sounds.