Guitar League Members Keep on Strumming

What do the members of the Syracuse Guitar League do when they get together? You guessed … they play guitar

By Mary Beth Roach

“If music’s in your blood…”

This is the explanation that Syracuse native Jim Horsman gave for why he formed the Guitar League in 2005 — a group that continues strumming along today, nearly 20 years later.

The 71-year-old said he’d been a drummer in what he called bar bands for years. But in his 50s he decided he wanted to take up the guitar.

He admitted he wanted to learn quickly. So he gathered together some guitarist friends he had come to know during his band days and they would meet up once a month to learn and share their talents.

Those get-togethers morphed into the Guitar League, with Syracuse being its first of eight chapters and the idea of “learn, play, share” has become the group’s motto.

Initially, the group consisted of about eight to 10 people, Horsman said.

Today, the Syracuse chapter numbers about 70. It meets the first Monday of the month at the Christ Community United Methodist Church, 3474 Stiles Road, off the Farrell Road exit of Route 690 West.

The group is open to all ages. Horsman and Bob Lewis, chapter leader, agree that the overwhelming majority of the members are older than 55.

And it’s open to all abilities — from the rookies, minors to majors and a group that Lewis called “the rusties.”

Each meeting is broken into three sessions, starting with an opener, which features a performance by a member of the group that runs for about 30 minutes.

Up next is a special presenter who focuses on certain tips and then the meeting caps off with a breakout session, during which the members move into smaller groups and work on music, helping each other with chords, fingering and technique.

Some members, like Lewis and Kathy Dillon have returned to the guitar after multi-year breaks.

Lewis, 72, had taken guitar lessons when he was 14 from his sister’s then-boyfriend. When they broke up, that was the end of the lessons, Lewis chuckled.

Years later, the Liverpool resident said, his wife got him a guitar and he had one goal — to play the song they walked down the aisle to — “If Not For You.”

Lewis has learned the song — and about 100 more, he said, quickly adding that he hasn’t committed them to memory; that he needs the music in front of him.

Dillon, 76, of Syracuse, has always loved to sing. She started playing the guitar at the age of 16, but eventually she sold it. She would go on to enter the workforce and raise a family.

She bought a new guitar at the encouragement of one of her sons and in 2010 attended her first Guitar League meeting after seeing an announcement about it.

That particular night, one of the area’s leading acoustic guitar performers, Loren Barrigar, was performing. He invited members to join him on stage. After much encouragement from another member, Dillon joined in and has been coming back for 14 years, finding great camaraderie.

“Everybody is so kind. You can stop anyone of them and ask them ‘how did you play that? Could you show me how to do a certain chord?’” she said.

A nine-year member, Bryan Dickenson, 71, also loves to sing. The Syracuse resident said that he’s been singing since he was in the crib, claiming his mother told him he would wake from his naps singing. He has gone on over the years to hone that skill, along with songwriting and guitar-playing.

Dickenson picked up the guitar at the age of 12, although he joked that “there wasn’t a lot of progress for the first 10 years or so.”

And Horsman, who now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, visits Syracuse from time to time, started a chapter in his new hometown.

There are also chapters in Boston; central Massachusetts; Phoenix, Arizona; Poconos, Pennsylvania; St. Petersburg, Florida; and southern Wisconsin.

For more information on Guitar League visit, guitarleague.com