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The journey that turned CSUN into a mecca for guitar students and the home of one of the world's most important guitar archives began in a split-level house in the Hollywood Hills.
It was there, in 1955, that Ron Purcell began studying with one of America's great classical guitarists. Not that he knew it at the time.
Purcell, who heads the Northridge guitar program, recalled his first encounter with Vahdah Olcott-Bickford in a recent issue of the journal Guitar Review.
"I was unaware of Vahdah's international prominence in halcyon days gone by. She was simply the guitar teacher assigned to me by the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Arts. Vahdah was not a braggart by any means, but little by little, I began to realize that I was studying the guitar with someone important and not just with a little old lady (she was 70 at the time) who taught the pad school (without nails) of right-hand technique, with the little finger resting on the sound board.
"Olcott-Bickford gave lessons at her home, but her students, myself included, were prohibited from wandering through the house. We would climb the 2 1/2 flights to the front door, continue through to the foyer and enter the living room, where we would take a seat and wait to be called into the...