We have a gentleman who has been taking lessons from our store off and on since I've been there.  He's a veteran, and I believe he suffered an injury during a tour of duty that has caused some cognitive issues.  He still has his love for music and he still wants to learn, so he's taken lessons as he's had the time and inclination.  I'm not even ( Read more... )

(Note: This story is from earlier in 2020.)

We have this customer with twins. Both play the same brass instrument. For whatever reason, this mom insists on bringing both instruments in at once for cleanings. I mean, I get it, why make multiple trips if you don't have to? However, this customer never seems to realize any of these things ( Read more... )

Tidbits I'd come across during last fall's rental season--made all the more difficult by the teachers only being involved via email for the most part (hooray pandemic ( Read more... )

Back in the fall, we had a situation that perplexed us with just how out-of-touch a particular customer was with how stores and ordering worked ( Read more... )

Between orchestra being online and our brutal winter cold snap, we've seen our share of orchestral strings needing to be tuned. Several times a week, we'll get a run on them. Sometimes it's cello day; one day in February, it was violin day ( Read more... )

In mid-January, I got a phone call from a woman. She had brought in her guitar the prior week to get it restrung and tuned, and it appeared to need tuning again as it didn't sound right to her ears. She thought that was odd. I said, that's not uncommon for string instruments in January. We're in the Midwest. Weather fluctuations will do that ( Read more... )

My boss is a professional musician. He has his own group and they recently put out a CD. It has gotten some airplay on a local radio station, and since several of my coworkers are involved, they get very excited to hear the songs on the radio, especially when it's one they hadn't yet heard play. We have some of the CDs on display; a customer ( Read more... )

One afternoon, a dad and his son came in. The son had broken his clarinet mouthpiece and they needed to replace it. I showed them what we had--a basic, cheap mouthpiece kit, plus two intermediate mouthpieces. Because the kid had just dropped his, the dad decided to go with the basic kit. From experience, I know that the cork on those ( Read more... )

A man came into the store and wanted to buy music for himself and his daughter to play duets. Great! What are you looking to play ( Read more... )

It's spring break. I get a call from a mom wanting to bring in her son's trumpet while he's off, but she wants it back quickly because he has concerts coming up. Understandable. She mentions that the trumpet has some dents, but she's confident we can get them out because she saw what we did for a family member's horn, where the bell was crushed, ( Read more... )