Mods: If this would be more appropriate in GQ or IMHO, feel free to move it. It’s about guitars (sort of), so I’m starting in CS.
I was just reading Lemmy’s (Kilminster, of Motorhead) Wikipedia page, and it had this bit from a documentary about him:
When (and maybe where) was that kind of scenario ever commonplace? It’s one of those things I’d always heard, but never witnessed. Maybe it was a feature of the early days of rock & roll, and I was just too late to reap the benefits? I was a teenager learning to play guitar in the '80s, and despite actually knowing how to play I never noticed that simply being able to play guitar was anything resembling a “chick magnet”. Playing guitar in a reasonably good band, yes. Merely knowing how to play guitar? Not so much.
In almost every rock biography I’ve read, getting chicks was a BIG motivation for being in a band. Being able to play well wasn’t usually a requirement.
It wasn’t. Some of the guitarists might honestly think that the guitar was the chick attraction when it was really their personality. They could’ve played air guitar on a tennis racket and it wouldn’t make any difference.
To add to the confusion, the hardcore guitarists with “superior technique” improperly analyze the situation and wonder why Jessica hangs out with John who is a mediocre guitar player while I can play a Bach Fugue blindfolded behind my head.
I keep thinking of the movie “Animal House”- there’s a toga party where some hippy guy is sitting on the stairs and playing a guitar surrounded by women. Then a jock walks up and smashes the guys guitar on the wall.
Personally, I played bad guitar in a punk band and I never had girls fall all over me at shows. It was my dream, but me just having a guitar never got me any chicks, sadly.
That’s sort of what I was thinking, if you’re already reasonably popular/attractive, adding a guitar can’t hurt anything, but if you’re not especially charismatic/confident, adding a guitar won’t really help. I mean, I’ve played for close to 30 years (though the last 15 or so years I’ve primarily been a bass player); I’ve performed a lot, and was even the bassist/lead singer in a pretty good band, and I’ve had absolutely no experience with females throwing themselves at me (or even simply talking to me) because of it.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not outgoing and charismatic, so I agree that has a lot to do with it, and is part of the reason I was drawn to the bass. There’s a “joke” about how lead singers and guitarists grab the women and party after a show while the bass player goes back to the hotel and goes to sleep. It’s really not a joke, though. The guitar and microphone attract the charismatic, “look at me” personalities, while the bass tends to attract a more reserved personality.
When I was in high school, back in caveman days, a boy in our freshman Spanish class was invited to bring his guitar in and play “Cielito Lindo” or some such. He brought down the house, so to speak, played a couple more songs, and finished up with “Pretty Woman”. I think being able to play the guitar is attractive to ‘chicks’ in that a guy who does it is able to do something, you know, interesting. Other than play videogames with his friends.
The guitar player in my Spanish class went on to become Chief of Police of our city. He didn’t do it to ‘score chicks’; but maybe the ability to master an instrument and play it in public shows the kind of personality that will be more outgoing, disciplined, and successful in life.
When I was in college (which was fairly recently) I knew a few guys who used prominently displaying a guitar in their dorm room and greatly misrepresenting their ability to play it as an integral part of their picking up girls strategy. It seemed to work moderately well for some of the guys. There were some definite qualifiers though. You had to be able to sortof play the intro and or chorus of at least 3-4 popular songs, and you had to be at least reasonably attractive in other areas too. Even if you were pretty good on the guitar it wouldn’t save you if you were utterly repulsive in other areas.
So to summarize, no, mere ownership of a guitar is not enough to make one a chick magnate. However, fronting guitar skills one does not have is a moderately effective way to impress certain types of teenage girls who are not disinclined to you for some other reason.
It can sometimes attract some attention for a short period of time, but you have to be able to play something they recognize, and yiu have to already be at leat moderately attractive.
A cute guy with a guitar = interesting, even if he plays three chords.
An average looking guy with a guitar has a window of about 5 minutes to lay down some game. Chances increase if he can compose something original.
An fat guy or uggo with a guitar attracts no interest, even if he plays like Yngwie.
I’m in the 2nd category, even though I could play pretty good when I was at my peak. It opened the door, but I had to do the rest with natural game.
Aha, that reminds me of another factor: entertainment availability. I’ll bet the guitar thing worked better back in the days before people had so many kinds of different entertainment available on-demand. Pre-1990s, if you wanted to hear a particular song you had to wait for it to come on the radio, or own the record, or be at the house of a friend who had the record, etc. Now? Download that sucker. Going back further, well, we’ve had at least two full generations of people grow up with music videos. Listening to some schlub with a guitar wank his way through a couple hit songs isn’t as impressive when you can watch the original artist play the song just about any time you want (I actually think this is partly responsible for the decline of the “cover band”, as well - people who’ve grown up with music videos are suckered by the illusion that the bands in videos appear to be playing “live”, and it still sounds like the original studio recording, so when a bar band sounds different, they think they’re “playing it wrong”).
And going back still further, there was the form of homemade entertainment known as the “sing-along”. Being able to play guitar (or piano, to judge by the “learn to play piano” ads in the backs of old magazines and comic books) made you a hit when a group of friends wanted to do a sing-along.
I’ma little intimidated coming into this thread with all you dudes, but I wanted to share my experience.
When I was single I seemed to always date the drummers, for some reason. I wasn’t particularly attracted to drummers, per se, but that’s who I ended up crushing on. I never went after any guy just because he was a musician, but since that was my forte, I was around them a lot. I never had an affinity for guitarists, but then I’ve always been weird.
When pianos were becoming popular in middle-class homes in 1800s, one of the supposed selling points was that girls with piano ability would fetch a husband quicker.
But the same primal instincts of men overruled that (regardless of what the piano advertisements of that time wanted parents to believe.) The girl needs to be pretty and and have a decent personality (not be a bitch).
It wasn’t true for pianos back then and it isn’t true for guitars today. The reality is that you have to be reasonably attractive and smile a lot.
I’m sure this “[insert product X] will make you more attractive to [opposite sex]” question will be rehashed in another variation in the future.
“Year 2250: I heard that guys that know how to manipulate light sabers is a chick magnet. Is that really true?”
Exactly. It does seem like, given the choice between two guys of equal attractiveness, girls pick the one with the guitar.
I’ve also noticed something. The guy usually has at least one girl who already liked him before he picked up the guitar. She usually has a friend to listen to him. Soon, other girls see the two girls there, and there seems to be a crowd. The guy sees this and thinks, wow, guitars must be chick magnets. But it’s really good old “social proof”. If a guy is getting the attention of one girl, it could be a fluke. But two? He must be a pretty awesome guy.
