Performing, with strings attached

Sept. 8 recently marked the anniversary of the annual GuitarFest in Centerville, Ohio. For 43 years, since founding the event in 1981, Jim McCutcheon ’73 has been at its center, collaborating with the Dayton Guitar Society and Centerville Arts Commission to put on an annual musical celebration that was held this year in Cornerstone Park. 

An active member of Dayton’s music community, McCutcheon began the festival to bring local guitar players together. Musicians are often busy trying to make ends meet, he said, and the event allows them to share a stage and perform various genres for all to enjoy.

“I saw it as a chance to get everybody together and appreciate each other’s artistry and also put on a public performance for the community,” McCutcheon said.

Guitarists can perform by submitting videos or recordings to McCutcheon, and each musician has a 15-minute set. All perform as volunteers, including groups like the Guitar 4 Heroes ensemble that gives military veterans musical opportunities.

The festival exemplifies the importance of musical community, as hundreds gather to enjoy the tunes while musicians mingle and jam together. McCutcheon fondly remembers going out for pizza with the musicians after the event and, one year, when every musician went on stage to perform “Yakety Axe,” which was filled with solos and lyrics about simply playing guitar.

McCutcheon said he loves “the friendliness of everybody, [and] how music just brings a lot of people together as performers of very different styles.”

McCutcheon’s community involvement goes beyond the festival. He runs McCutcheon Music with his wife Debbie, broadcasts a Dayton Public Radio show called “The Intimate Guitar” and has taught music at UD since 1978. McCutcheon Music began as a teaching facility, expanded throughout Centerville, and now employs about 60 instructors and offers lessons and repairs to all kinds of musicians.

“We’re helping about 80 people make a living or part of their living from music,” he said. “My wife and I do that together. We share the same values in terms of treating people the way we would like to be treated.”

McCutcheon graduated from UD with a physics degree but enhanced his guitar skills with the help of Bunyan Webb, who would periodically travel through Dayton as a touring musician. His love for both science and music came together when he started his Dayton Public Radio show in the ’80s while working at UD, and he even hosted a show for a couple of years before that on WYSO, “Strictly Guitar.”

Guitar instruction is one of McCutcheon’s greatest and most rewarding passions. He teaches students of various majors and said he loves to see them grow throughout college and after graduation.

“Teaching here has just given me lots of experience with really good students who really want to learn,” he said. “My favorite part is just seeing students get it and go beyond their sense of limits.”

McCutcheon’s musical activities this fall include a faculty recital 7 p.m. Sept. 22 in the Roger Glass Center for the Arts. Audience members can expect multiple styles of music from many countries and time periods as well as various tales intertwined with McCutcheon’s music.

McCutcheon aims to inspire upcoming musicians, emphasizing the importance of following one’s path and becoming educated in music.

“If you want to excel at an instrument, find an excellent teacher,” he said. 

Photos courtesy Jim McCutcheon. Hero image by Wes Hicks/UnSplash.