Dimapur, September 17 (MExN): When Nagaland’s classical guitar pioneer – and easily the only Naga guitar maestro in his stature in the genre – Ren Merry, graduated with a Master’s degree in Music Performance in 1992 in Chicago, extremely few Nagas had actually heard of ‘Spanish boxes’ – if there were any proper ones at all that time in Nagaland. Or even classical albums – leave alone proper Naga classical guitar instructors. Or classical instrumental concerts from Naga guitarists.
Today, the practical attributes of many a Naga music student in Nagaland lugging a Spanish Guitar can be traced back to their teacher, their teacher’s teacher and to, yes, Ren Merry. Just ask anyone from Joey Woch to Gugs Chishi to Lopeno Patton who has an idea or two about the state music was in Nagaland during and since 1990.
The guitar hero is sadly, today, being almost forgotten among the Naga people as Nagaland has churned up musicians and music graduates by the hundreds in the past two decades. But back home, in the United States, Ren Merry has been razing out a big niche – far from even his earliest stints as Patkai Christian College’s guitar instructor or his 7-years teaching as Westminster Christian Academy’s guitar instructor, in Louisiana State, US. A prolific classical guitar instructor in the US today, Ren Merry could never give time to the musical academics since his Master’s in Chicago in 1992.
Away from his hectic music teaching career – and American wife Tammie Merry and 3 children – he has finally done something he had always pushed back to the back-burner all these years – Ren Merry was recently conferred Doctorate of Arts in Music Education by the School of Music, University of Northern Colorado.
But this man – originally hailing from Wokha’s Okotso village – isn’t the kind of man who would enjoy being called “doctor” by any form or suggestion even by his now-uncountable most beloved students from both in Nagaland and the US. He has several classical guitar albums including those he produced during his short stay in Nagaland but, he prefers not to talk about them. An extremely humble and modest man, Ren Merry prefers to list in his resume only the events since his becoming a Christian. Rare copies of his early works can still be found in the collections of Naga music enthusiasts though. His latest known work was Ren Merry: Classical Guitar, a collection of hymn-arrangements and originals.
There are reports that the dissertation the maestro wrote ‘Paradigm for Effective Pre-College, College Guitar Methodology’ would be out for print for music enthusiasts. Another book, ‘Two Models of Effective Instruction’ is also said to have been set. Enthusiasts may watch this space.
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