Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Case.
Hi Jenny, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m a lifelong musician, started music lessons at 6, and am now almost 47. I currently play electric guitar and bass guitar in several bands (Flamin’ Oh’s, AbbaSalutely Fab, etc.) and am a freelance, working musician so play with multitudes of other artists, bands, shows, productions, etc. I usually play gigs 2-3x/a week.
I also write music and have several original music projects going at the moment.
I’ve been a music teacher for 31 years, I mainly teach guitar, bass, and piano, but also teach drums, ukulele, voice, and songwriting/recording. I started MN’s first and only Girl’s Rock Camp in 2007 called Girls Rock n Roll Retreat (GRRR). In 2009, I co-founded a nonprofit org called She Rock She Rock, which would be the umbrella organization over GRRR and another future programming such as Women’s Rock n Roll Retreat, classes, workshops, jams, etc. GRRR is going into our 17th summer camp in 2023.
The reason I started GRRR was that I had a really rough time as a child/teen and music is really what saved me. As a teen, I wanted to start an all-girl band but found it very difficult to find other girls/women to play with. Gender inequality is a HUGE issue in the music industry and because there aren’t a lot of women out in the mainstream playing electric guitar, bass guitar, and drums – playing those instruments isn’t on the radar for girls as they’re growing up. So I love being a guitar teacher for that reason, most of my students are female, nonbinary, and trans, and I love being able to be that positive role model for them. I also love that at GRRR all of our Music Coaches are women, nonbinary and trans folks- so they can be really amazing role models for the campers to see themselves in.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, it has not been easy or smooth. Quite the opposite.
I’ve been playing in bands for over 30 years and it’s still totally a boys club. Pretty much all of the guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, and drummers I play with are men. There are always a lot of female singers, but not many female instrumentalists. That’s what I’ve always been striving to change with GRRR and She Rock. When I’m the Music Director of a band or project and I need to call in an instrumentalist for a job, pretty much all the names on my list right now are men and I’d love more than anything for that to change and to get more women in the industry to be able to fill those positions. I’d love to be able to hire all women for some of these jobs! But instead, it ends up 99% of the time that I’m the only woman in the band. And it bums me out!
At GRRR, the teachers do “skits” every morning for campers, and one of our most famous skits is called Mr. Macho Music Store Man. The premise of this skit is based on an experience I had at Guitar Center 20 years ago where I went in specifically looking to order a Hughes & Kettner bass amp, which I knew they wouldn’t carry in stock. I asked the sales guy if I could special order a “Hughes & Kettner” and he said back to me “Acoustic guitar? You’re looking for an acoustic guitar?”! I said “No! Hughes & Kettner” and two more times we went back and forth where he thought I just didn’t know how to pronounce “acoustic guitar!”
So in the Mr. Macho Music Store Man skit at camp, we have a teacher dressed as “Mr. Macho Man” who runs a music store, and a female customer walks into his store looking for an “electric guitar”. Mr. Macho Man literally cannot hear that she says she wants anything other than either an “acoustic guitar”, a “microphone”, or a “tambourine”… because that’s all that young ladies know how to play!!!
It’s hilarious- they just improv off this theme for a while until the female customer gets fed up with the sexism and misogyny and decides to take her business elsewhere. This skit gets everyone (both campers and staff) hooting and hollering, and all the teachers are nodding their heads as if to say “yep, that happens to me all the time!”. Sad, but true.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am currently the Co-Founder/Artistic Director of She Rock. I helped start the org in 2009 and have been proud to help run most of the programming we’ve done over the years, namely Girls Rock n Roll Retreat (GRRR), Women’s Rock n Roll Retreat (WRRR), classes, jams, open mics, and workshops. We’ve served thousands of campers in the Twin Cities area in the past 17 years and I look forward to serving thousands more in the years to come! At our camps, I am usually one of the Camp Directors, but I also help teach all the instruments (guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals) when needed and help coach bands.
The premise of GRRR (and similarly WRRR) is that campers don’t need any prior musical experience, and they come to camp and learn one of the above instruments, form a band, write an original song (or two), take workshops (on social justice topics, self-defense, media literacy), make merch for their band (t-shirts, buttons, jewelry, etc.) and then put on a big concert for the community on Friday night at a real rock club.
So maybe we end by discussing what matters most to you and why?
It matters to me that young folks see folks who look like themselves represented in the music industry, whether it’s playing guitar, bass, drums or seeing someone working as an engineer or producer in a recording studio, or seeing someone running the soundboard at a concert!
It’s also extremely important to offer continued mentorship to young folks. That’s something I never had growing up and it would’ve made a world of a difference to me if I would’ve had an adult mentor/role model in my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sherocksherock.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/she_rock_she_rock/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sherocksherock
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/girlsrockmn
- Other: www.jennycase.com
