(From left to right) Seretse Small, Norman McCallum, Shawn Richards
I am not sure when was the first time I met Norman McCallum. He lived not far from my father’s house on University Close on the campus of the University of the West Indies. I knew that he taught Classical Guitar in his house and that my father respected him. This respect would be in the form of the tone of his voice when my father spoke of Norman’s collect of Classical Guitar pieces which dwarfed his own. My father’s collection held snugly on a shelf in his study at home. Norman’s books and music manuscripts took up an entire room in his home. My father was an amateur guitarist but for most of my young life, he was the greatest guitarist that I had ever known so for him to be so respectful of Norman made me curious to know more about this man. Who was this keeper of the flame of all things guitar?
Later on, I started playing the guitar more seriously myself and my visits to Norman’s became more frequent and I soon realized that he did have enough music in his house that would allow you to play guitar for hours at a time if not days. He would introduce me to duets and music of all styles from Pop to Jazz.
In my turbulent late teens, I moved away from my father, my family and the classical guitar and started playing electric guitar in all kinds of ensembles from Hotel Bands, to Reggae bands to being a Christian worship leader. After many years of journeying, I returned to the Jamaica School of Music to study music education and I was reunited with Norman, now as my teacher.
The time with Norman as a student was invaluable. He stabilized my right-hand technique and I finally started to read music with some sort of system and growing fluency. When I later moved on to Berklee and rebranded myself as a Jazz musician it was Norman’s shaping of my fingerstyle technique that remained the base of everything that I accomplished. So when it was time to build Avant Academy of Music I reached out to him to be our first guitar teacher along with myself.
In preparation for the Acoustic Delights performance at the Cannonball Cafe on Thursday, November 28, 2019, I met with him and guitarist Shawn Richards, who is also performing on the show and like myself was taught by Norman in a group music room at Avant Academy of Music. After we discussed the guitar repertoire for the show and with Shawn playing some stunning guitar in the background, I proceeded to ask Norman a few questions about his journey and his feeling about the place of Classical Guitar in Jamaica.
Here are a few highlights from the discussion.
When did your relationship begin with the guitar?
In early childhood, there was a family friend, a sort of romantic figure who sang cowboy songs and played the guitar. I was quite young and that was my first impression of the guitar. He would visit the family and sing these western songs and that intrigued me. A little after there was Elvis Presley. The classical guitar actually came many years later. I started piano lessons, not a very young age either, like early teens and started teaching myself guitar based on what I was learning in piano reading. I started learning Classical Guitar from a book, the “Frederick Noad” and then I auditioned for the Jamaica School of Music which was located on Hope Road next to the YMCA. Based on my piano background and my audition I was accepted.
What is the motivation to keep playing and teaching the guitar? What is the thing that drives you?
I don’t know how to explain it, it is just a part of me. Something I couldn’t see myself not doing.
Norman looks at the work of his former student, Shawn Richards who is now himself a leading proponent of classical guitar not only as a teacher but has been writing his own method book with arrangements of important, culturally relevant pieces like the Jamaica National Anthem.
What is your opinion about the importance of the guitar and the kind of education approach that you and Shawn are promoting? Do you think there is a place in Jamaica for it? What do you think of the future for it?
I think we have to be a little active in showing other people a place for it. A place meaning not just the guitar as it is now known for strumming chords or the electric guitar. The acoustic guitar, fingerstyle, we have to show people and convince that it can take the place of even the piano to educate children to start off studying an instrument. There is a sort of prejudice for the piano or the violin having more status in the past. I think the guitar has not been discovered in its full potential in fingerstyle and classical (technique), and in saying classical I do not mean just playing classical music, I mean classical technique.
Thanks. Looking forward to the show.