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Arts and Entertainment
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Friday, 22 January 2010 01:49 |
By Francis Scudellari
There's some interesting music being birthed deep in the bowels of the building at 1515 W. Howard Street in Rogers Park.
A group of guitar players and artists are letting their imaginations transform the seemingly simple studio space into a roomy mountain lodge with a fire blazing and a snowy riverbank just outside the window. The posh surroundings may exist only in their minds, but the music these day-dreamers create is very real.
Guitar Friends Studio offers a new approach in learning how to play the guitar. The Affective Immersion Project (AIP) was invented by the studio's director, Ron Scroggin, though he gives a lot of credit for the discovery of its technique to earlier work he did with guitarists Howard Roberts and Jessica Galang.
In its most basic form, Scroggin connects the dots of musical notation marked on the diagram of a fretboard to create shapes. These abstract line drawings become the inspiration for imaginary worlds, which themselves inspire both teacher and students to journey through sonic landscapes.
For Scroggin and those who play with him, it's a way to enliven the often mechanical approach of practicing on their instruments, and it's also a means to open themselves up to new creative possibilities.
Scroggin describes the process as one that "taps in deeply, emotionally and psychologically." He says that it "helps his creative and cognitive processes to imagine himself in the mountain lodge and river environment." It's a way of "being in the pattern" of notes and chords he maps out on sheets of paper representing the guitar's fretboard.
Anita Chase, singer and lead guitarist in the band 1/2 Mad Poet, knows firsthand that you have to experience AIP to fully understand it. "When Ron first told me about the project, I was very confused. But visualizing made me see the guitar in a whole new way."
To get a better handle on just what AIP is myself, I sat in on "Sounds of Shapes," the Winter Session recital at the studio space on January 10.
During the performances, I was carried along by instructor and students on their musical explorations. Some of the material performed was original, and some was a reinterpretation of classic rock songs.
Scroggin and student Schaeffer Lucius got things started with their jam of "A Day in the Mountains," an original piece inspired by the mountain lodge sketch. Then, Scroggin and young guitarists Michael and Rudy Melchiorre gave us their take on Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't fear the Reaper," including much more cow bell, of course.
Kimberly Jauregui, Thomas R. Jones and Scroggin strummed a piece called "Kimberly's Kite" that riffed on the chords shaping the song title's image and that was loosely based on Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence." Icy joined in midway, layering spoken word over the musical ideas.
The afternoon also included original works by Chase, Icy and Robert Wolberg.
Contributing her thoughts via teleconference, Scroggin's daughter Lisa Brandt Heckman connected the immersive qualities of AIP to techniques she learned in acting classes. "You have to expose yourself and find the parts of yourself that relate to your characters. ... It's multiple personality integration."
The project is growing and hoping to integrate even more creative aspects. Guitar Friends is currently collaborating with artist Andy De La Rosa, from the B1E Studio, and Jones, co-founder of United Expressions Salon at the United Church of Rogers Park. Together they are trying to discover new connections between the visual and performing arts.
Scroggin and Jones play regularly at the church along with poets, dancers, and musicians, and they once jammed on the stage there while De La Rosa painted. Another product of this interdisciplinary approach will be a mural project later this year on the CTA underpass at Farwell and Glenwood.
To see and hear the Guitar Friends yourself, you can check out their monthly recitals at the Heartland Cafe (7000 N. Glenwood Ave., Chicago). Performances are every third Sunday of the month at 7pm.
Ron Scroggin and Guitar Friends can be reached by phone at 773-852-2726, or by e-mail at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. You can also find them on the Web at http://facebook.com/ron.scroggin and http://gfgt.multiply.com.
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