mmr september 2012

w w w . m m r m a g a z i n e . c o m S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2

Piano & Keyboard Industry Embraces Social Media

Striking the Right Chord

Reeds & Mouthpieces Market Overview

Show Report: Summer NAMM

MMR iPad APP NOW AVAILABLE

Cover September.indd 1 8/16/12 11:19 AM

KAWAI K-3 Professional Upright Piano2011 Acoustic Piano of the Year

For the eleventh time in twelve years, KAWAI has received

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2010KAWAI K-3 Professional Upright PianoAcoustic Piano of the Year



2007KAWAI CA91 Digital PianoDigital Home Keyboard of the Year

2005KAWAI RX Series Grand PianosAcoustic Piano Line of the Year



2002KAWAI CN270 Digital PianoDigital Home Keyboard of the Year

2001KAWAI ES1 Digital PianoDigital Keyboard of the Year

2000KAWAI CP200 Digital EnsembleDigital Keyboard of the Year

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2 MMR SEPTEMBER 2012

MMR Musical Merchandise Review® (ISSN 0027-4615) founded in 1879, is published monthly by Symphony Publishing, LLC, 21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494 (781)453-9310, publisher of School Band and Orchestra, Choral Director, Music Parents America and JazzEd. All titles are federally registered trademarks and/or trademarks of Symphony Publishing, LLC. Subscription Rates: U.S.A., US possessions, one year $32; two years $40. Canada one year $80; all other countries one year $159. Single issues $5 each. May Supplier Directory $35. Periodical-Rate Postage Paid at Boston, MA and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER/SUBSCRIBERS: Send address change to Musi-cal Merchandise Review, P.O. Box 8548, Lowell, MA 01853. Periodicals circulation is directed to music dealers and retailers, wholesalers and distributors, importers and exporters and manufacturers of all types of musical instruments and their accessories, related electronic sound equipment, general musical accessories, musical publications and teaching aides. The publishers of this magazine do not accept responsibility for statements made by their advertisers in business competion. No portion of this issue may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Copyright ©2012 by Symphony Publishing, LLC, all rights reserved. Printed in USA.

22 Upfront Q&A: Vic FirthThe percussion manufacturing legend speaks with MMR about his company’s commitment to pioneer-ing and perfecting sustainable business practices.

40 Q&A: Hailun’s Basilios StrmecVienna International recently announced a partner-ship with Czech piano manufacturer, Petrof. Hailun CEO Basilios Strmec discusses details of the part-nership with MMR.

44 A Privileged PositionCasio general manager Mike Martin discusses the company’s brand new additions to its upscale and portable Privia line of pianos, as well as Casio’s move toward becoming a more all-around prestigious brand.

62 Band & Orchestra: Reed and Mouthpiece Overview

They’re a small part of the instrument, but reeds and mouthpieces are one of the most significant products involved in the woodwind and brass mar-ket. Not only are manufacturers constantly experi-menting with new techniques and approaches, but they’re always in demand. This is a segment of the industry always worth a retailer’s attention.

72 Survey: Reeds and MouthpiecesMMR polls over 250 MI outlets to find out about trends in reeds and mouthpiece sales and the various chal-lenges facing stores and consumers in this category.

74 Grover Music at 90 YearsThe Cleveland manufacturer celebrates a big an-niversary as a successful builder of a variety of well-loved musical products, as well as a long past life as wholesaler Grossman Music Corporation.

SUMMER NAMM 2012

46 Show Report: Summer NAMM 2012It was another busy week for attendees to NAMM’s annual Nashville convention, where visitors enjoyed the sights, sounds, and business of the summer’s most essential MI gathering. MMR rounded up thoughts from all ends of the industry in this con-vention wrap-up as show-goers assessed another year of business evolution, as well as next year’s new digs at the Music City Center.

56 Best and Worst of Show AwardsA surprise John Oates performance? Check. Tantaliz-ingly expensive vintage guitars? Check. Fried green tomatoes? Of course. See what else pops up in our lists of best and worst (take notes, Nashville…).

www.mmrmagazine.com

In every issue:4 Editorial6 Upfront18 People77 New Products

85 Supplier Scene90 Classifieds96 Advertisers’ Index

SEPTEMBER 2012 VOL.171 NO. 9

Contents

Cover design by Laurie Chesna

26 Spotlight: Striking the Right Chord – The Piano and Keyboard Industry Embraces Social MediaWe hear from a number of voices in the piano and keyboard community about the role of social media in helping to boost business in this challenging, but vital component of the music industry.

TOC September.indd 2 8/16/12 11:22 AM

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EditorialSidney Davis

sdavis@ symphonypublishing.com

PUBLISHER Sidney L. [email protected]

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Rick [email protected]

EDITOR Christian [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Eliahu [email protected]

Matt [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING WRITERSChaim Burstein, Dennis Carver, Kevin Mitchell, Dick Weissman

ADVERTISING MANAGER Iris [email protected]

CLASSIFIED & DISPLAY AD SALES Steven [email protected]

PRODUCTION MANAGER Laurie [email protected]

GRAPHIC DESIGNERSLaurie [email protected]

Andrew P. [email protected]

CIRCULATION MANAGERMelanie A. [email protected]

SYMPHONY PUBLISHING, LLCChairman Xen Zapis

President Lee Zapis [email protected]

Chief Financial Officer Rich [email protected]

Corporate Headquarters26202 Detroit Road, Suite 300, Westlake, Ohio 44145440-871-1300www.symphonypublishing.com

PUBLISHING, SALES & EDITORIAL OFFICE: 21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494 (781) 453-9310 Fax: (781) 453-9389www.mmrmagazine.com

Volume 171 Number 9 September 2012

®


Pareto’s Principle“Some people are more equal than others.” That was the cryptic answer a trade association executive proffered to some attendees questioning the seat-ing arrangement at the group’s annual gathering. (In the interest of full disclosure, the group was NARM serving the record industry and not to be confused with NAMM). The truism of that statement holds in just about every facet of business and personal life, ranging from early boarding to concierge level lodgings, pre-ferred seating to receptions and dinners at a trade event.

Basically it’s the Pareto Principle, described as the 80/20 Rule in play. The 80/20 Rule loosely described is that in any endeavor a few (20 percent) are very important and many (80 percent) are much less of a factor. Bringing it down to the commercial level, 20 percent of a supplier’s customers represent 80 percent of their volume and the same can be said of the body retail and perhaps to a lesser degree to the customer base within the retail environment.

The 80/20 Rule came about in the early 1900s when an Italian economist, Vil-fredo Pareto, created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in the country, opining that 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. How does this apply to present day? According to the formula, 20 percent of your stock takes up 80 percent of your retail space and conversely 80 percent of your stock comes from 20 percent of your suppliers. Following this premise 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your staff. Con-versely, another interpretation of the Principle projects 20 percent of your staff will cause 80 percent of your problems, but another 20 percent of your staff will provide 80 percent of your production!

Quoting author John Reh, “The value of the Pareto Principle for a manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 percent that matters. Of the things you do during a day, only 20 percent really matters. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of the results.” In summary, many businesses have an easy access to dramatic im-provements in profitability by focusing on the most effective areas and eliminating, ignoring, automating, delegating or retraining the rest, as appropriate.

An overview of the music products business reveals an even more finite por-trait with Guitar Center’s $2 billion revenue and a collective 330 units accounting for approximately 30 percent of the $6 billion plus revenue generated by US music dealers. In a further perspective gleaned from the recent Fender Musical Instru-ment public offering filing, GC accounts for 15 percent of the company’s net sales. Surveying the Top Music Chains (MMR December 2011) the remaining 70 chains of three or more units do not collectively match GC’s $2 billion figure…

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Upfront

Gibson Settles with US GovernmentOn August 6, in a Criminal Enforcement Agreement with the Department of Justice, Gibson Guitar Company acknowledged responsibility for importing illegal wood into the United States and incurred penal-ties totaling a minimum of $600,000, in-cluding the forfeiture of wood taken from the protected forests of Madagascar.

According to the DOJ, Gibson will pay a $300,000 fine and donate an additional $50,000 to the Nation-al Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The company will escape criminal charges by adhering to terms of a settlement in the next year and a half. Gibson also has agreed to abandon a lawsuit seeking $261,000 in damages incurred during the investigation.

Ignacia S. Morena, an assistant U.S. attorney general, said, “Gibson has ac-knowledged that it failed to act on in-formation that the Madagascar ebony it was purchasing may have violated laws intended to limit over-harvesting and conserve valuable wood species from

Madagascar, a country which has been severely impacted by deforestation.”

An official press release issued by Gibson, reads (in part): CEO Henry Jusz-kiewicz commented: “We felt compelled to settle, as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve. This allows us to get back to the business of making guitars. An important

part of the settlement is that we are getting back the materials seized in a second armed raid on

our factories and we have formal acknowledge-ment that we can continue to source rosewood and

ebony fingerboards from India, as we have done for many decades.”

Despite the fact that, “...the government acknowledges that Gibson has cooperated with the Government and the investigation conducted by the Fish and Wildlife Service,” Gibson was

subject to two hostile raids on its factories by agents carrying weapons and attired in SWAT gear where employees were forced out of the prem-ises, the production was shut down, goods were seized as contraband, and threats were made that would have forced the business to close.

CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz commented, “We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted… Instead, the Government used violent and hos-tile means with the full force of the US Govern-ment and several armed law enforcement agen-cies costing the tax payer millions of dollars and putting a job creating US manufacture at risk and at a competitive disadvantage. This shows the increasing trend on the part of government to criminalize rules and regulations and treat US businesses in the same way drug dealers are treated. This is wrong and it is unfair. I am committed to working hard to correct the inequity that the law allows and insure there is fairness, due process, and the law is used for its intended purpose of stopping bad guys and stopping the very real deforestation of our planet.”

For the full DOJ press release, visit www.justice.gov.

Sam Ash to Leave Historic 48th Street Address“Yes it’s official, we are moving,” Sammy Ash told MMR on Tuesday, July 24th, just hours after news first broke that Sam Ash Music Stores would be vacating the compa-ny’s flagship location(s) on 48th Street for new digs at 333 West 34th Street. “The parking lot, my drum store, my brass and wind store – everything is coming down some time in 2013 to make room for condos.”

The timeframe for the big move is still a little up in the air, though. “We can’t say when, exactly, because we don’t know when, right now,” Ash continued. “I can tell you that we are absolutely at 48th street through the holidays.”

Sam Ash’s departure from 48th Street is yet another – though certainly the most significant in recent years – sign of chang-ing times for the former “Music Row,” as it was once known. “It’s absolutely the end of an era,” Ash conceded. “48th Street had music stores for over 70 years. We remain a draw, Rudy’s [Rudy’s Music, with a lo-cation on West 48th Street] I think will do okay because he’s a destination store and

he has customers who don’t go anywhere else. I don’t know what they’re planning for his part of the block, but his downtown store [on Broome St.] is one of the most beautiful guitar stores you’ll ever see, so I don’t think he’ll skip a beat.”

“Where we’re going is fantastic,” Sam-my states. “I’m going to be half a block from the Lincoln tunnel, I’m right near Macy’s, right near the Javits Center, and Penn Sta-tion – traffic is great. The one bad thing you can say about 48th Street is that, since

nobody lives in that neighborhood, once people leave their offices and go home, it’s dead. Also the new place will put our whole operation on one floor, plus everything will be brand new – new everything.”

While news of the move caught some a little off guard, Ash speaks with confi-dence of the industry’s – and his own op-eration’s – resilience and strength: “We are solid, we are strong, and we plan on taking advantage of some upcoming op-portunities as they come along.”

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Upfront

Avid sells M-Audio to inMusic, Comments on Future of SibeliusIn early July, it was announced that Pro Tools manufacturer Avid was selling M-Audio, the music technology hardware and software company that it acquired in 2004. The buyer is inMusic, the par-ent company of Akai Professional, Alesis, Numark, and others – and, notably, his-torically a competitor of M-Audio.

Commenting on the move, which represents part of a wider restructure that also sees the company’s con-sumer video editing line be-ing sold to Corel Corporation, Avid says that it wants to, “focus the company on its Media Enterprise and Post & Profes-sional customers and to drive improved operating performance.”

The divested product lines contrib-uted approximately $91 million of Avid’s 2011 revenue of $677 million. As part of

the transactions, certain employees of Avid will transfer to each acquiring com-pany. Avid estimates that the proceeds from these transactions will be approxi-mately $17 million, subject to closing in-ventory adjustment, with a portion held in escrow.

Later in July a number of reports – mostly via social media and online forums – started pop-ping up, suggesting that Avid would be discontinuing sup-port of the Sibelius line, that

production and development will move from the UK to the Ukraine, and many other rumors along those lines.

“Sibelius users should be reassured that despite the rumors, Avid is will con-tinue to support Sibelius going forward and we absolutely have future release planned,” Mark Williams, media pro-grams manager for Avid, told MMR on Thursday, July 26. “Sibelius develop-ment moving forward will be managed in California, where we will be able to leverage the deep expertise of our pro au-dio development team.”

AES Expands to ChinaAES Regions & Sections chair, Peter Cook, has concluded a series of meetings in Beijing, which have resulted in the for-mation of the first Audio En-gineering Society Section in mainland China.

Early this year, Shusen Wang, a long-time AES member, VP of a Beijing broadcasting company, and a leading professional au-dio consultant there, contacted Cook to explore the possibility of establishing a Beijing Section. In late May, Cook made two AES presentations to members of the China Audio and Video Association (CAVA). Follow-ing those meetings a group of over 25 Chinese AES members from Beijing and other cities, discussed a Beijing Section with Cook. Wang was unanimously invited to chair the Section.

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Upfront

ADJ Open HouseEarlier this summer, a crowd of approxi-mately 300 DJs, lighting professionals, club owners, and dealers visited the ADJ Group’s world headquarters in Los An-geles to tour the company’s new show-room and see some of its latest products from American DJ, American Audio and Global Truss America in “realistic light-ing and audio environments.”

The new 4,000 square foot state-of-the-art showroom, which is shared with sister company Elation Professional, fea-tures a replica of a nightclub, a realistic production stage and other realistic ven-ues. American DJ lights are showcased in these realistic settings, often as part of choreographed lightshows. Contributing to the realism of the showroom setting

was the trussing used from Global Truss America.

“We’re excited about our new show-room, because it gives our friends and customers an oppor-tunity to see how our products work to-gether in a real world setting,” said Al-fred Gonzales, national sales manager of American DJ. “Looking ahead, we’re also excited about using the showroom as an educational resource where our dealers can send their staffs for train-ing.”

On the audio side, visitors to the open house were exposed to the “concert

quality sound” of the German-designed American Audio Sen Series speakers and the versatility of the company’s VMS4.1 workstations.

Lauren Keiser Acquires Southern MusicRecently, the 75-year old Texas music publisher, Southern Music of San An-tonio, Texas, was acquired by veteran music publisher, Lauren Keiser. South-ern Music is a leading educational and concert music publisher having pub-lished thousands of titles and establish-ing a long list of standard school and concert repertoire for band, chamber groups, individual instruments, orches-tra, choral, and vocal forces.

Arthur Gurwitz, owner and CEO of Southern said, “We are happy and fortu-nate to be purchased by Lauren Keiser,

a foremost publisher in the United States and the world. We know that Southern Music’s future is assured in Lauren’s ca-pable hands.”

Lauren Keiser states, “Arthur Gur-witz and his family have dedicated their entire lives to creating this venerable publishing enterprise, so it is a great honor to be part of the future of this es-teemed publishing house with its talented composers, excellent reputation and val-ued copyrights. We are excited to con-tinue building on the long history of an American music icon and publisher of so

many gifted composers and authors.”

The Southern Mu-sic publications will be available from Hal Leonard, who exclusive-ly distributes the Lauren Keiser Music Publishing titles worldwide. South-ern Music will maintain an office in San Antonio, Texas with Bob Dingley, Southern Music’s gen-eral manager, running the operation on a day-to-day basis.Handshake between Arthur Gurwitz and Lauren Keiser following the agree-

ment signing.

CymbalMasters Launches Crescent CymbalsCymbalMasters has formed an all-new company with the introduction of Crescent Cymbals. Formerly the sole US distributor of Bosphorus cymbals, CymbalMasters embod-ies the collective talents of Stanton Moore, Jeff Hamilton, Bill Nor-man, and Michael Vosbein.

“When we formed the origi-nal company we were determined to bring the highest quality sound to discerning musicians every-where but we soon found that our supply could not keep up with our demand,” stated Michael Vosbein, president and CEO of Cymbal-Masters. “All of us (CymbalMas-ters) are professional drummers, so we like to be very hands-on with design and development. Now we can create demand and keep up with it. I know that Crescent will be the tone that others are judged by.”


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Upfront

Fender’s Mexico Factory Celebrates Silver AnniversaryFender Musical Instruments Corpora-tion (FMIC) recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of its factory in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

“We are very proud to have reached

such a significant milestone,” said Sergio Villanueva, senior vice president, global manufacturing, for Fender Musical In-struments Corporation. “The level of craftsmanship produced in this factory is

a testament to its suc-cess.”

More than 1,000 guests, including lo-cal dignitaries, com-pany executives, and factory employees, commemorated the facility’s anniversary with fireworks dis-plays, live mariachi music, performances by Escuelita Fender, Grupo Fandango, and the popular Norteño band Intocable.

FMIC senior vice president of global manufacturing, Sergio Villanueva, FMIC COO, Jim Druckrey, and Fender Mexico vice president of manufacturing, Jorge Ortega, with members of Norteño band Intocable.

PreSonus Acquires NimbitPreSonus™ Audio Electronics has ac-quired Nimbit®, Inc., pioneers of direct-to-fan sales and promotion for the music industry. The Nimbit acquisition extends PreSonus’ strategic vision of empowering musicians and audio profession-als with an ecosystem of products and services.

Along with news of the acquisition, the companies have also unveiled the first integration be-tween their products. PreSonus Studio One™ 2 audio-production software has been updated to add instantaneous deliv-ery to the Nimbit platform, providing what the company describes as, “the world’s first complete solution for the creation, sales, and promotion of music and audio.”

To accomplish this integration and take advantage of the companies’ syner-gies, PreSonus acquired Nimbit, Inc., in April 2012. Both companies are privately

held, and the acquisition occurred for an undis-closed sum.

Nimbit will continue independent operations in Massachusetts as a wholly owned subsidiary

of PreSonus. Nimbit founders Patrick Faucher and Philip Antoniades, along with CEO Bob Cramer, will continue running day-to-day operations, product specification, and development of the Nimbit platform; and Nimbit’s develop-ment, support, retail, and marketing teams all remain with the subsidiary.

Ethel Merker’s career high-lights include acclaimed sym-phonic performances, radio and TV jingle gigs, and teaching sev-eral well-known music education-al programs over the years. As a female musician in Chicago in the 1940s, Merker’s accomplish-ments are all the more impressive. She was a pioneer who paved the way for, and inspired, those who followed in her footsteps. Specif-ic to the MI industry, Ethel Merker is most notable for having been asked by G. LeBlanc to create the now popular Merker French horn.

Ethel passed away in her Chicago area home on July 19, 2012. She was 88 years old.

In 1859 August Förster opened a piano workshop in Löbau, Ger-many. Wolfgang Förster grew up deeply involved in the family-owned business. After national-ization of East Germany in the early 1970s, the company became state-owned, but Wolfgang con-tinued to manage the building of their musical instruments. The family name was added back into the official company name in 1976, the same year the organization be-gan its first exports to the United States. Wolfgang’s daughter cur-rently runs the company.

Wolfgang passed away on June 30, 2012.

Longtime music retailer and pia-no tuner, Jim McEvoy, passed away in San Diego on June 17, 2012 after a long battle with Lewy Body dementia.

McEvoy apprenticed as a piano technician in his native Ireland in 1946. The following decade he and his bride moved to San Diego, California where he worked at a local music store before opening McEvoy Music. The store had a well-respected

Trade Regrets:

Correction:In our July cover feature on the Nashville Market, Dave Wascher’s name was incorrectly spelled as, “Washer.”

On page 19 of the July issue, Jay Wanamaker’s name was misspelled in his photo caption as, “Wannamacher.”


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Trade Regrets:

sheet music department, which was originally created by Jim and his wife Margaret. After the store closed in 2006, Jim continued to tune and restore pianos, including those for NAMM’s Museum of Making Music.

Jack K. Lewis served as president and COO for the Conn Organ Company after years as the company’s manager of Marketing Administration, General Sales manager, director of Marketing, and senior corporate executive.

Lewis was involved with Conn Organ during the great home mar-ket boom of the 1960s and 70s. He was president at the time McMillan owned the company, but retired from Conn Organ before it was closed. In recent years, while in his retirement, Jack created the Conn Organ Family page on Facebook to re-unite former employees and others associated with the company.

Jack Lewis passed away on Mon-day June 19 in Sarasota, Florida after suffering a major cerebral hemorrhage.

Raymond J. Enhoffer, 64 of Clif-ton, N.J. died suddenly on Saturday, June 30, 2012.

Enhoffer received a Bachelor of Music Degree from Julliard at Man-hattan School of Music in NYC. He was employed has director of Re-search and Development at Latin Percussion in Garfield, N.J. for 26 years prior to starting his own busi-ness, Filament Solutions in 2011.

Pioneering retailer, Masamitsu Ya-mano, has passed away in Japan at the age of 77. His son, Mako, an-nounced that his father passed away on July 17.

In 1892, Yamano-san’s grand-father opened up a small music stop in the heart of Ginza – the shopping area of Tokyo, Japan. The retailer, which started out as a small keyboard dealer, has expanded over the years to include over 50 retail stores in Japan.

Yamano’s vision for the growth and development of the music in-dustry has played a large role in the Retailer’s division of the Ja-pan Music Industry Association. As chairman of the Japan Music Fair Association, he promoted the music products industry as well as the theme of active music making around the country.

Steinway Reports Q2 Results, Operating Income Doubles On August 2, Steinway Musical In-struments, Inc. (NYSE: LVB) report-ed earnings for the quarter and six months ended June 30, 2012.

Second Quarter Results Compared to Prior Year Period

• Sales of $85.7 million, down $3.2 million, or 3.6%

• Gross profit of $27.4million,up3.4%

• Gross margin increased to 31.9% from 29.8%

• Income from operations of $6.0 million, up $3.1 million

• Adjusted EBITDA of $7.1 mil-lion

• Earnings per share of $0.19, up $0.28 per share

YTD Results

• Sales of $163.7 million, up 1%• Gross profit of $50.5million,

up3.4%• Gross margin increased to

30.9% from 30.2%• Income from operations of

$8.1 million, up 23.5%• Adjusted EBITDA of $11.1

million• Earnings per share of $0.24,

up $0.28 per share Non-GAAP Adjustments are de-

tailedintheattachedfinancialtables.

Balance Sheet Highlights• Cashof$40.5million• Borrowingavailabilityofover

$105 million• Inventory reduced $13.8 mil-

lion, or 9%, from June 2011 Commenting on the second quar-

ter, CEO Michael Sweeney said, “We are pleased with our overall results. We saw substantial improvements inour manufacturing operations world-wide, leading to increased gross mar-gins.Higher gross profit, along withtight control over operating expenses and lower interest expense, resulted in a substantial increase in net incomefor the quarter.”


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MMR15 15 8/16/12 10:24:45 AM

www.melbaydealers.com

Upfront


MMR’s sister publication, School Band & Orchestra (SBO) conducts an annual scholarship competition for music stu-dents in grades 5-12.

The SBO Essay Scholarship Contest has awarded over $240,000 in scholar-ship funds and music products to more than 120 school music programs since its inception. This year, the contest’s 12th, two students from California, Illinois, and Washington, each, were among the 10 winners, with the other four hailing from Maryland, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia. Five winners were selected from grades nine to 12 and five students from grades four to eight each received a $1,000 schol-arship and their respective school music

programs received a matching award of musical products from co-sponsors NAMM, Alfred Publishing, Sabian Ltd., Woodwind & Brasswind, and Yamaha Corporation of America.

This year’s theme, “Dear School Board Member: why we need music education in our schools…” generated contributions from every state in the U.S., as well as several foreign coun-tries. The music students received their scholarship award from local music dealers representing NAMM (the Na-tional Association of Music Merchants), a major co-sponsor of the program.

The winning school music programs and their music directors included Kar-

en Banaszeweski, Jane Addams Junior High, Schaumburg, Ill.; Greg Brucker, Frances Harper Junior High, Davis, Calif.; David Jarrott, Kealing Middle School, Austin, Texas; Terry Privette, Princess Anne Middle School, Virginia Beach, Va.; and Chuck Torbett, Hadley Middle School, Glen Ellyn, Ill. Also Jon Fey, Monta Vista High School, Cuperti-no, Calif.; Jacob Scherr, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon, Wash.; Jeff Horenstein, Meadowdale High School, Lynnwood, Wash.; Donald Mc-Clure, Havre de Grace High School, Havre de Grace, Md.; and Todd How-ell, Warner Robins High School, War-ner Robins, Ga.

2012Essay Contest

Winners

Winning essays can also be read online at

www.sbomagazine.com.

Caroline HamiltonAge 12 • Grade 6

Princess Anne Middle SchoolVirginia Beach, Va.

Dave Kreiselman of Music & Arts; band director Terry Privette, Princess Anne Middle School Virginia Beach, Va.; scholarship winner Caroline Hamilton; and Matt Caroll, Music & Arts store manager.

Devayani VarmaAge 12 • Grade 7

Frances Harper Junior HighDavis, Calif.

Devayani Varma, scholarship recipient; Water-melon Music co-owner Jeff Simons; and Greg Brucker, Harper Jr. High music director, Davis, Calif.


SEPTEMBER 2012 MMR 17

Alex JiricekAge 12 • Grade 7

Hadley Middle SchoolGlen Ellyn, Ill.

The mother of scholarship winner Alex Jiricek; Quinlan & Fabish school representative Alan Szafranski; Alex; and music director Chuck Tor-bett, Hadley Middle School, Glen Ellyn, Ill.

Insia KhanAge 13 • Grade 8

Jane Addams Jr. HighSchaumburg, Ill.

Cassandra Thuneman of Cassandra Strings; essay contest winner Insia Khan; and music teacher Karen Banaszewski, Jane Addams Jr. High, Schaumburg, Ill.

Eliza K. CainAge 14 • Grade 8

Kealing Middle SchoolAustin, Texas

Al Marabella, Blackerby Violin Shop; Eliza Cain, contest winner; and David Jarrott, music director at Kealing Middle School, Austin, Texas.

Emily HallAge 16 • Grade 11

Meadowdale High SchoolLynnwood, Wash.

Gary Cranwell, Kennelly Keys Music; contest winner Emily Hall; and Jeff Horenstein, choral director, Meadowdale High School, Lynnwood, Wash.

Sujean KimAge 16 • Grade 11

Mount Vernon High SchoolMount Vernon, Wash.

Justin Henry, manager of Hugo Helmer Music Store; scholarship recipient Sujean Kim; Jacob Scherr, Mount Vernon High School music director; and David Vega, Hugo Helmer Music band specialist.

Amy ChungAge 17 • Grade 12

Monta Vista High SchoolCupertino, Calif.

Diana Tucker, West Valley Music; scholarship winner Amy Chung; and music director Jon Fey, Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, Calif.

Brinley SwansonAge 17 • Grade 12

Warner Robins High SchoolWarner Robins, Ga.

Scott Pallot and Travis Bryant, Macon Music; with essay contest winner Brinley Swanson (center) of Warner Robins High School, Warner Robins, Ga.

Katie BubbAge 17 • Grade 12

Havre de Grace High SchoolHavre de Grace, Md.

Don McClure, Havre De Grace High School music director; Katie Bubb, scholarship winner; and Joseph Noto of Music Land, Bel Air, Md.



People

Two Old Hippies, manu-facturers of Breedlove and Bedell Guitars, has named Dave Pelletier as general manager of their facilities in Bend, Oregon.

Pelletier will be respon-sible for day-to-day operations of the fa-cilities. He will rely on his considerable MI experience to lead the team and focus on projected future growth of the Two Old Hippies brands.

The addition of Dave Pelletier will compliment another major event that is currently in process with the Central Oregon guitar manufacturer. Two Old Hippies is relocating their US factory to a new facility in Bend, Oregon. The in-creased space and improved work flow of the new facility will be essential in con-tinuing to maximize production of US made guitars.

Yamaha Corporation of America (YCA) has an-nounced that John Shal-houp has been appointed as the company’s chief marketing director, a newly created position. He will report to Tom Sumner, senior vice presi-dent, YCA.

Shalhoup’s new duties include de-veloping and implementing new mar-keting strategies that ensure a cohesive Yamaha message across the company’s divisions and across all sales channels, to strengthen and elevate brand awareness. He is also responsible for initiating cross-marketing relationships with alliance partners, including The Walt Disney Company and Carnegie Hall, to further Yamaha’s marketing reach.

Korg USA, exclusive U.S. distributor for Korg, VOX, Blackstar, Lâg and HK Au-dio, has announced new hires and pro-motions for its national sales team.

Tony Santi has been hired as a dis-trict sales manager (DSM) for the Midwest Region. Currently residing in Des Moines, Iowa, Santi brings nearly 20 years of MI expe-rience to Korg USA, both in the retail and on the

manufacturing side. Most recently, he was a regional sales manager at Peavey Electronics, and prior to that, held re-gional sales management positions at St. Louis Music and multiple music retailers in the Des Moines area.

Doug Reynolds has been appointed to the posi-tion of key accounts man-ager. In this new role, he will serve as a dedicated sales representative to build and maintain strong pro-fessional relationships with various key accounts, and to drive business for Korg USA’s brands and his accounts. Reynolds brings to the position over 16 years of MI experience in various sales and market-ing roles, most recently as a Korg USA DSM.

Chauvet® recently pro-moted Ana Jaramillo to national sales manager of Chauvet DJ.

A part of the team since 2001, Jaramillo’s career at Chauvet began as an assis-tant to the national sales administrator and evolved into her northeast territory sales manager position. As national sales manager, her responsibilities include overseeing four territory managers and putting measurable sales strategies in place to increase and expand the market share.

E.K. Blessing Brass has welcomed Bill Love as sales manager for the Blessing and Sonaré brass product lines. Love comes to Blessing with a strong back-ground in sales, having sold consulting services in the hospitality industry and educational marketplace for the past fif-teen years. An established trumpet play-er, he is a member of the North Shore Musician’s Association and is currently the lead trumpet player for the band “Overdrive.”

Earlier this year, Brendan Crise joined Blessing in the role of brass prod-uct manager. Crise attended the Univer-sity of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. and is currently on staff with the Notre Dame Marching Band. Before joining Blessing, Crise spent eight years as an

employee of the Woodwind and Brass-wind, holding positions in both sales and marketing. His responsibilities at Bless-ing include brass product development, product testing, artist management, and marketing

Joseph Martin has signed a new agree-ment to continue as the director of sacred publica-tions for Shawnee Press, the choral and instrumental music publishing company acquired by Hal Leonard in 2009. Martin has over-seen the overall publishing for the church market – for Shawnee and its prestigious imprints Harold Flammer Music and GlorySound – and is respon-sible for maintaining their stellar reputa-tions.

In his expanded role, Martin will fo-cus on catalog development, composing, producing, workshops and reading ses-sions. He will continue to report to Emily Crocker, vice president of choral publica-tions for Hal Leonard.

Taye Drums recently appointed Eddy Martinez as their sales representative for Mexico, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Co-lumbia. Martinez will be selling all Taye and Taye distributed brands.

C. F. Martin & Co. has announced three new staff promotions: Scott Foll-weiler to artist relations coordina-tor, Matt Sysko to sales events man-ager, and Kristi Bronico to product manager-String Division.

Music Group has appoint-ed Steve Young to the role of vice president, Installed Sound. In his new role, Young takes overall respon-sibility for Behringer’s Eu-rocom line and will over-see all product, marketing, and market development activities aimed at installed applications worldwide. Coinciding with the broad availability of the Eurocom product line from Music Group, the ap-pointment signals the company’s com-mitment to aggressive growth in installed sound

Pelltier

Shalhoup

Santi

Reynolds

Jaramillo

Martin

Young

People.indd 18 8/16/12 11:25 AM

MMR19 19 8/16/12 10:24:53 AM

www.skbcases.com

visit us online at www.namm.org

NAMM News is published by NAMM. To keep up-to-date on the

latest breaking industry news, sign up for our NAMM News e-newsletter

at [email protected].

NAMM News September 2012

Note from Causby

Causby Challacombe NAMM DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP

Make the Most of Your MembershipWhat can NAMM do for me? I get asked this question

a lot. Investing and reinvesting in a NAMM Membership follows the

same principles that you apply to your business—you invest money,

time and energy to make it successful. The same holds true for

belonging to NAMM.

Making NAMM Membership a part of your strategic plan will help you make smarter business decisions; be more strategic; save money through group purchases; share best practices; and network with key businesses in the industry.

I spent time at the Member Center during Summer NAMM and had the opportunity to ask many people, “Why do you belong to NAMM?”

Here are some of their responses:

“Music changes the world. NAMM helps make that happen.”

“Best way to expand my business that I know of!”

“NAMM has helped us find new ideas and better ways of doing business.”

“Making connections, networking, new products and the trade shows.”

“The Member programs alone save us more than the cost of Membership and the advocacy work that NAMM does in music education.”

“The best way to stay current in every aspect of the music business.”

“I have learned everything I know from NAMM Members during the NAMM U education sessions.”

“It’s important to support the trade organization for the trade you are in.”

“We are a new manufacturer—I know NAMM Membership is an essential part of our success.”

Business consultants say 85 percent of all business failures occur in companies that are not members of their industry trade association. That—combined with the fact that most association members

have a 100 percent or greater return on dues—are two ways to justify your yearly NAMM Membership.

If you are asking the question, “What can NAMM do for me?” I welcome the opportunity to help you define your place within the association. Together we can determine how you can make the most out of your Membership.

Let’s work together to keep this great industry thriving!

Membership Contest WinnersCongratulations to these companies that visited us at the Summer NAMM Member Center and won our drawing for a free one-year NAMM Membership.

OVERTURE GUITARS MARICH MUSIC REDZONE GUITAR WORKS East Peoria, IL Corning, NY Pasadena, CA

MMR20 20 8/16/12 10:26:41 AM

www.namm.org

c o n n e c t

BUILD your brand

SHOW your products

REACH your customers

www.namm.org/thenammshow/2013

MMR_21 21 8/16/12 4:39:01 PM

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AQ&Upfront

At one point during our recent (June and July 2012 MMR) two-part feature speaking with MI operations

that have made significant commitments to adopting “green” approaches to the manufacture and distribu-

tion of product, we conceded that, “Everybody has a story to tell on this subject (and no doubt we left out

some good ones, for which we apologize in advance).”

Case in point: Vic Firth.

Vic Firth

The iconic drumstick manufacturer (as well as brushes, mallets, et cetera – they’re also a respected name in salt- and pepper-grinders!) has long embraced techniques which cut down its carbon footprint. Whether it’s actually creat-ing drumsticks, heating the facilities, or packaging and transporting product, Vic Firth is about as “green” an operation as

you’re liable to find, in any industry. We recently chatted with Vic him-

self to get the scoop on how and why the company that bears his name has been so committed to being environmentally conscious.

MMR: Vic Firth was ahead of the curve when it comes to

“going green,” having enacted a number of environmentally friendly practices well before it was trendy to do so. Can you talk about the underlying phi-losophy behind that?

Vic Firth: I have been the cata-lyst for most of the ongoing changes throughout the history of the compa-

Industry Legend Discusses Trailblazing (and continuing) Commitment to Environ-mentally Sound Business Practices… All images courtesy of Vic Firth,

photo credit: Kamal Asar.

Wood is cut into boards. The grinders (L to R: Thom Hannum, Vic, Stanton Moore).

Upfront Q&A.indd 22 8/16/12 11:26 AM


ny. I’ve always been concerned with the company’s impact of waste on the envi-ronment and encourage all employees to make suggestions to reduce the waste flow.

MMR: Back in ‘92 when you switched up stick packaging from plastic to the now indus-try-standard paper sleeve, what was the motivation? How diffi-cult (or easy) was that? What was initial industry response?

VF: Philosophically costs have had no effect on our decision to go “green.” This is a good example. When the plastic sleeves were eliminated we re-moved a million sleeves from the waste stream. The sleeve was made from re-cycled paper and printed with soy ink, making the sleeve biodegradable and environmentally clean. At first this in-creased assembly time and costs, but the team learned new methods to use the new sleeves eliminating the cost increase over time. We also packaged the 12 pairs in cardboard boxes at that time. Want-ing to remove all these boxes from the waste stream we developed a method to strap the sticks together with a plas-

tic band. Today the same 12-pair bricks are only shrink-wrapped to eliminate the plastic band as well.

MMR: Can you discuss the evo-lution of the “environmentally-driven” initiatives up through to the present day – including water and sawdust filtering and recycling, burning wood (and not a fossil fuel), et ce-tera? How difficult was the process of conversion of pro-duction techniques to reach the current set-up?

VF: Water is used to cool the grind-ers during stick production. The large volume of water used was a concern so we developed a tank and filter system, which is still in use today. There are a lot of wood pieces and sawdust as a result of making drumsticks. Since we use a boiler to heat the kilns utilized to control the moisture content in our wood, as well as to heat the plant dur-ing the cold New England winters, us-ing the wood and sawdust as fuel was an easy decision. The result is that the plant burns much less fossil fuels with this change.

“I’ve always been concerned

with the company’s impact of waste

on the environment and encourage all employees to

make suggestions to reduce the waste flow.”

Pairs of sticks are packaged together in paper sleeves.

Sawdust is re-used to heat the plant.



MMR: Talk about the use of wind-power at the factory: when did that begin, what pro-cesses does it cover?

VF: Unfortunately the initial usage study to build a windmill at the fac-tory came back negative. The plant is next to a lake, meaning it is on low ground. There was not enough wind at the site to make this plan a reality. We are continuing to evaluate options to use wind and solar power.

MMR: Overall, comparing the costs of conversion and con-struction which have made VF such an environmentally respon-sible operation to the current operating costs, do you feel that, in the long run, “going green” has saved the company money, cost money, or ultimately runs about “even” with traditional manufacturing techniques?

VF: Again, philosophically costs have had no effect on the decisions to go “green.” Some changes have cost more short term, but have evened out over

time. Using less fossil fuel will help us reduce the amount of energy required to run the plant.

MMR: You’re actively partnered with – and frequently honored by – the state of Maine and environ-mentally minded organizations within that state and around the country. How important is that to Vic Firth and what sort of up-sides (or downsides?) has it af-forded the operation?

VF: We reach out to organizations that have the best expertise in this area and can help us learn more about alter-nate ways that will have a positive impact on the environment. The upside is we are always learning new possible tech-niques and technologies to improve our energy conservation.

MMR: What further advance-ments (if any) are on the hori-zon for VF when it comes to go-ing green?

VF: The process never stops and we strive to do things better and cleaner.

Effor

tless

Pow

er &

Bea

uty


www.jodyjazz.com

www.schoenbach.com

U-320

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Spotlight

Using social media to “make the piano cool again”

Piano & Keyboard Industry Embraces Social Media

Striking the Right Chord


Spotlight.indd 26 8/16/12 11:27 AM


Most agree that piano segment of our industry has been slower to em-

brace the Internet in general and social media in particular than other

portions. As one MI professional said: “Piano stores are late adopters

in general, which is a shame and a reason behind why they are suffer-

ing so much. Being too conservative, too slow to embrace technology,

having this reluctance about new things has affected their business.

They are definitely lagging behind the rest.”

One reason for this characteristic is likely that selling pianos online wasn’t initially as easy as selling a guitar or even a drum kit. “At first, many were happy to have a sim-ple website, have their names in lights so to speak, with links to the manufacturers they represent,” says Yamaha’s Mark Anderson. “However, piano dealers have figured out that the public is getting all their information from the Internet. Secondly, it’s emerged as an important branding tool.”

Speaking historically, Anderson notes that 20 years ago, “everything was cut and dried” for the dealer: he or she knew the world, advertised in newspapers, put some-thing in the Yellow Pages, and had seasonal sales. “But now people get information in an entirely different way, and you have to give your information to them in the ways they want it. Social media can’t be selling, it can’t work that way – it has to be what is happening at the store. You can promote something once in a while, but it has to be about the store.”

“Social media in general and Facebook, in particular, is extremely important,” says Gary Girouard of Kurzweil. “All you have to do is look at the percentage of customers on their smart phones chatting on it.”

Hailun’s Basilios Strmec launched a social media initiative with unexpected conse-quences. “Our Facebook [presence] has taken an unintended life of its own as we got business requests from merchants in South America, Europe, and even Africa without any additional [advertising or promotional] cost.”

What Works, What Doesn’t for ManufacturersYamaha has been on the forefront of social media, being active online for all their

products, including their piano segment. They have a team that handles social media, but–significantly– their approach is a casual one. Anderson stresses that it can’t appear “corporate.” “Product pages are great for when someone wants to dig into the specs of piano or keyboard, but social networking sites don’t work like that,” he says. “It’s got to be something interesting.”

What’s interesting? Just one of many examples are exclusive videos of international artist Peter Baartman talking about his approach to playing certain songs (on Yamaha, of course). Another social media-made event was when district manager Dan “Fin-

Tom Lagomarsino

Mark Anderson

Gary Giouard

Basilios Strmec

“People get information in an entirely different way,

and you have to give your information to them the way they want it.”



gers” Rodowicz played the Yamaha Ty-ros Keyboard at an Oakland A’s game: It was a Facebook exclusive before they moved it to YouTube for everyone else a few weeks later. “Now he’s not pushing Tyros ‘per se’ as it’s about playing in a ballpark,” just like Baartman’s is about playing – but product placement of Ya-maha is effective.

When Elton John opened his “Mil-

lion Dollar Piano” show in Las Vegas, Yamaha employed social media to stage a contest where two VIP tickets for the show were given away. “A goal of that campaign was to make the public aware of our dealers,” Anderson says. You could register online, through Facebook or Twitter, but you’d only get one entry. If however you went to the Yamaha piano dealer, used your smart phone to regis-ter via the QR Code (Quick Response barcode) on the posters promoting the contest, you could enter up to 10 times. “It was great because people went out to the stores and were waving their smart phones at the posters, and it got people into the stores.” The winners were flown out for three days at Caesar’s Palace,

picked up in a limo, and provided back-stage passes.

“We launched our Hailun USA Face-book page about a year and a half ago with the aim of strengthening our family of retailers,” says Strmec. “Hailun deal-ers have become a tight community with everyone seeking to service customers appropriately and supporting the overall advancement of the brand. It only made

sense to us to offer Facebook as a plat-form for dealers to mingle and catch up on Hailun specific new and info.”

Strmec was pleasantly surprised when, “consumers also joined us and commented on photos or news bits, and it became clear that checking our Face-book site became part of the investigation process into their pianos.” They stay ac-tive with it: “We keep our posts relevant to everyone in the industry. Pictures of sales professionals in different markets, success stories, emails from customers, humorous anecdotes, and even interest-ing tidbits from other piano makers all find their way onto our Facebook page.”

From his perspective, it becomes equally important for the customer to

identify the “feel” of a company, i.e. the way it communicates and the type of re-lationship it has with industry stakehold-ers along with the quality of the pianos. “Customers mark a well-established Facebook page as an indicator of a trust-worthy company to purchase pianos from.” So it matters.

Kawai launched their Facebook page a year ago, and it is managed by several,

including Tom Love. “Our site is definite-ly for the consumer,” he says. “We view it as another way to disseminate informa-tion to our customers.” The decision to jump into the social media fray was from an internal discussion and a desire not to be left behind. There were some initial concerns about customers going off on rants on the page, but “honestly we don’t get a lot of rants period, and are known for being proactive.”

Kawai knows that there are people who “live” on Facebook and “do every-thing they can there – and it’s good to be where the customers are. Having a You-Tube channel is extremely important, as some people prefer YouTube and that’s another interesting part of the mix.”

“Customers mark a well-established Facebook page

as an indicator of a trustworthy company to purchase pianos from.”


Complete.

BECHSTEIN AMERICABOX 87 MANALAPAN, NJ 07726 [email protected] 801-726-7282

MMR29 29 8/16/12 10:28:09 AM

www.bechstein-america.com


“Facebook reaches a broad sector of the music industry market and new con-verts as well, including both our current market and the young people of our fu-ture market,” declares Mason & Ham-lin’s Tom Lagomarsino. “Therefore, with a broad brush we are targeting dealers, retail sales associates, distributors, future potential dealers, and consumers who are interested in learning more about our company, products, current events, etc.” He adds that customers who already own their Piano Disc products can see and hear their new music – live and in high definition with videos, interviews, and artist profiles. “These new social media outlets transport our music and products to new audiences. It’s a way of keeping people up to date and current in one cost-effective and visually-stimulating fell swoop.”

Lagomarsino disputes the notion that piano manufacturers have less of a need to be active in social marketing. He says with Mason & Hamlin artists such as Jarrod Radnich and Brian Culbertson, they are using social media to “make the piano cool again” and reintroduce the appeal of “this incredible percussion in-strument. Pianos are relatively expensive instruments; but when they are the center of a performance they also can command the most attention. The reach of social media for exciting video performances rivals and surpasses the most impressive traditional marketing campaign.”

Going forward at Mason & Hamlin, they will continue to highlight new mu-sic and product releases, promote artist concert dates, customer appreciation

“I think Facebook pays off in a new and special way,” compared to tra-ditional marketing, says Charlie Ollmann of The Music Connection. “We put up news and specials and try to keep our regular customers in tune with what’s going on in the store.”

Ollmann, president/CEO, opened his “mom and pop neighborhood guitar and school band store” in 1981 with his wife, Barb. They have grown over the years and now have two locations, the main one in Forest Lake (Minneapolis/St. Paul area), and a piano showroom in Edina, Minn. They are a big Yamaha dealer, carrying “every products in their main lines.”

The Music Connection first built up an extensive email list, and today they have 7,500 customers who receive something from them about three times a month. “It has to be something worthwhile, because we don’t want people inundated,” Ollmann says. “Some of my vendors email me stuff ev-ery three days! And that’s too much.”

Their Facebook page has over 500 friends and they keep it active. With-in a couple of weeks, they posted a note about Yamaha piano rebates, a shot from the local paper of Ollmann himself at a wienie roast, something about a Yamaha special financing deal, a coupon for their store, and a shot from of them at the Minnesota Music Educators Clinic. Social media, with email and their web page, has pushed their traditional ad costs down 40 percent. “When we do a big event and see someone new in the store, we ask him or her how they heard about it and more and more it’s an e-blast of Facebook, and that’s helping our bottom line.

A challenge is they are a full-line store, so have a variety of customers, the one looking at new pianos are usually quite different then the ones look-ing at pro sound systems.

Ollmann has had his Facebook page for two years, and has a sign in the store to encourage those who come in to “friend them.” They also have a button on their website. They haven’t done a contest or give-away to get that number up yet but he says they are very likely to do one in the summer. Ollmann, a professional pianist who plays out at dueling piano gigs, also let’s musicians and people he meets that they should “friend” his store.

While Music Connection has someone in-store who handles the majority of all their on-line needs, he person-ally handles most of the Face-book stuff. “We try to post something twice a week.” And all of it is positive: acknowledging that some stores choose to weigh in on the political or social issue of the day, he stays clear of any of that. “There’s no ranting on our Facebook sight,” he says. “It’s our whole philosophy of the Golden Rule: treat people as you want to be treated. We don’t talk bad about competitors or products we don’t carry. If one of our customers has a big gig or has put out a new CD, we try to promote them. We’ll put up the occasionally funny bit that pertains to music.”

Making Social Networking Work – Piano Dealer Edition


BECHSTEIN AMERICABOX 87 MANALAPAN, NJ 07726 [email protected] 801-726-7282

Bechstein. First.

MMR31 31 8/16/12 10:28:35 AM

www.bechstein-america.com


programs, and e-newsletters. “And we will be linking it all to our hi-definition videos of our products in use, and those who subscribe will enjoy being a part of

our community and receiving the advan-tages of this integral part of our market-ing plan.”

Schimmel’s Lothar Kiesche reports

they are in the process of preparing a Facebook page. “Social networking is of immense importance for selling pianos,” he says. “In fact, this is just a new version of what has happened all the time. The Internet does not re-ally change the selling approach, it just gives us another channel with its own set of rules.”

Worth ItThere have been trials and tribula-

tions. Anderson admits not all social media campaigns work. He tells of one where they were counting down to a Yamaha event, and they were sending something about it every day. “Doing the analytic, we could see by the third day people were unsubscribing from us!” he laughs. “It was a small percentage doing that, but I pulled it right away. Now this was in the early days, and we learned to watch the analytics closely and see where the needle is moving… we also learned

What’s New in Pianos & Keyboards?While we had these keyboard

specialists on the phone, we asked them what is new:

“I think the most exciting thing that is new at Yamaha is the new hybrid NU1,” says Mark Anderson. “We previously have released the AvantGrand series that includes grand piano action inside. The NU1 is the first with an upright action. It looks, plays, and sounds great.” It is housed

in a refined, compact design and like the AvantGrand offers advanced piano sound reproduction without the tun-ing, cost or footprint of a comparable acoustic piano.

“Bechstein has been enjoying a continual and steady up tick in busi-ness for our Hoffmann pianos built

in the Bechstein factory in the Czech Republic since they were introduced to the North American market two and a half years ago,” says David Skidmore.

“These instruments are manufactured under the close scrutiny of our German production managers, yet because of substantial manufacturing cost ad-vantages sell for considerably less than our instruments manufactured in Germany. We certainly recognize that the North American consumer still has a desire to purchase well made Euro-pean instruments, and our company is fortunate to have positioned ourselves to properly accommodate this desire.”

At Hailun, they have expanded their Dream Assurance program to all Hailun Pianos. “The Hailun Dream Assurance allows a customer to ex-change his or her piano in the first 60 days of the purchase at no cost for another unit of the same model,” Basi-lios Strmec says. “This offer was pre-

viously only available for grand pianos. Helium’s Dream Assurance sets a new benchmark in customer care service in the industry.”

“We just completed our full range of entry level production, the Virtual Orchestra,” says Lowrey’s Frank West. “It’s a single keyboard, and there’s a digital piano part of the se-ries. The best part is it is based on our advanced Performer technology, and allows the player to easily and



instantly choose different types of instrumentation.” This means when a player wants a piano-oriented orches-tration and voicing set, they simply select the ‘Pianist’ button – trans-forming the Virtual Orchestra into a piano. Additionally, when a player wants a complete band – press the ‘Full Band’ button.”

“Our new MP Series is based on our professional PC3,” says Kurz-weil’s Gary Giroud. “It has that sig-nature Kurzweil sound and we were able to use the subset of PC3 sounds for this home digital piano instru-ments. I personally think it’s the best-sounding digital piano on the market.” Featured on the MP-10 and MP-20 is the Triple Strike Grand Piano as well the PC3 drums, basses, horns, winds, guitars, and percussion. The MP-20 features all three standard acoustic piano pedals built in and there’s an optional Volume/Expression pedal in-put facilitating dynamic performanc-es.

Tom Lagomarsino of Mason & Hamlin says they are highlighting the broad market versatility or their Pi-anoDisc iQ player piano technology.

“NBC’s ‘Today Show’ recently fea-tured our technology on the Mason & Hamlin piano with artist and educator Jarrod Radnich as he gave distance learning lessons to Miss South Dako-ta, Anna Simpson,” he says. She was preparing to perform his arrangement Pirates of the Caribbean for the Miss America Pageant.

Lothar Kiesche is proud that the German Design Council has nomi-nated two Schimmel instruments for the German Design Award. “The K125 Tradition received the iF Award and the V 155 Modern received the Good Design Award,” Kiesche reports. “With these two design awards, Schimmel is the most highly awarded piano maker in the world for design world.” He adds that their new

design strategy is a reason their cabi-net models are being well received in the market as well.

At Blüthner Piano, there’s the new S 57 Concert Upright that is be-ginning production says Jim Reeder. They also launched a new website Bluthnerusa.com, that allows players and dealers connect to their Facebook page and YouTube channel.

At Kawai they’ve launched the new ES 7 digital piano. “It’s a big step forward with a new tone genera-tor chip that allows for 256 note po-lyphony and enhanced and expanded reverbs and effects,” says Tom Love. It has USB Digital Audio capabilities and a rhythm section with 100 accompani-ment styles.

it’s important to have a post-mortem on these campaigns.”

They use Facebook successfully, engag-ing their customers. In April Yamaha posted this: “We’ve been getting into the new Face-book Timeline and found it’s a great way to share a little company history with you. What products or company history would you like to see us add to the timeline?” They got a big response from it with people re-questing information about their products.

Frank West says despite preconceived notations of the Lowrey demographic, older baby boomers and beyond are ac-tive online. “We have plenty of older customers visiting our website,” he says. “Just from personal experience, I know a number of seniors who use Facebook to stay in touch with their grandkids. When you’re out and about, just look at the number of older adults with smart phones. And we had a group visiting our office here yesterday and at least a half a dozen were taking notes on their iPads.”

While appreciating the benefits of be-ing online, and encouraging their dealers to dive in, Lowrey hasn’t gotten in the proverbial social media water yet, West reports. “We’re starting by encourag-ing it at the retail level to help them get people in the door,” he says. “For us, we haven’t refined our strategy yet. We see some manufacturer sites that are well crafted, and others that aren’t. Lowrey isn’t going to launch a Facebook page just to launch one. It’ll be well-thought out.”

Over at Bechstein, David Skidmore says that there has been more than one incarnation of their Facebook, most re-cently when it was reborn when they re-launched their new international website. “Facebook is for dealers and manufactur-ers equally,” he says. “Most of our effort in social networking is focused on con-sumer involvement. Certainly all of our social media efforts are strategic as we make every effort to bring more brand awareness of our products to the public.

It is definitely a symbiotic relationship as to the success for all of us.”

The Big PictureYamaha’s aggressiveness includes

embracing “old” media as well. “When we’re coming out of a marketing meet-ing, we’re looking at how everything is tied together. The banners on websites, Facebook and tweets should look like the ads in MMR.” They make everything available to their dealers including videos



so “if they want to jump in the pool, they can get art work for anything we’re run-ning” and include it in their social media messages.

West also advocates to consider social media as part of a whole: link it with an online newsletter, use it with Constant Contact, etc. “It builds awareness and can be a lot cheaper then placing a print ad.”

Girouard says it’s key for a manufac-turer to monitor the information, make sure it’s correct. For that reason Kurz-weil is active on YouTube. “I believe absolutely that getting as many product demonstrations out there as possible is important,” says Girouard. “It’s about controlling the information, and keeping the story authentic. If you don’t someone else will likely do it ‘for’ you and nobody knows your product as well as you do. You want the best quality information out there as possible, because with social media, that information gets circulated and forwarded.”

All agree on the importance of You-Tube. “It is so ubiquitous,” says Skid-more. “One can get lost! However, when-ever there is a noteworthy performance or announcement that our products are

involved we most assuredly identify it on our website, and will pass along the link to all whom we think may be interested.”

“It’s important to have an active pres-ence both on Facebook and YouTube. With the increasing popularity and reach of social media, it is a significant factor in our marketing plans. It’s a primary area of focus when it creates an affordable and simple tool to maintain our connection and forge new introductions and demon-strations of our products to a broad spec-trum of people.”

“We do see an ebb and flow in popu-larity between the many different social networks,” says Skimore. “We actively monitor what we do as well as competi-tors, and follow the trends closely to de-termine where our efforts should be con-centrated. Many of our dealers have very well thought-out web pages and depend on this communication for a large per-centage of their success nowadays.”

Twitter appears less important to the mix. It seems suppliers who are on it have just linked it to their Facebook page and when they put something on that, it au-tomatically tweets, too. The exception to this is Yamaha.

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“We do Twitter differently, use a dif-ferent methodology,” says Anderson. “To be honest, that’s one of the areas that needs to be looked at especially carefully. It can be time consuming be-cause if you’re doing it right, you should be adding stuff to it on a regular basis. But a lot of people use it to follow our artists.”

Encouraging the Dealers“At our annual Mason & Hamlin

Dealer University, a part of our curricu-lum for the last few years has been a so-cial media sales & marketing class,” says Lagomarsino. They teach participants how to immediately leverage the resourc-es of social media to their benefit and that of their customers. “We teach feasi-bility, ideas, examples, statistics, trends, and walk them through a step-by-step processes for integrating their businesses into the social media framework.”

This can be just the fix for a domes-tic piano industry’s relatively small bud-get for traditional marketing. “Necessity is the mother of invention and properly managed social media is a cost effective

way of reaching more people in a more focused means than traditional media methods.”

“As a dealer you might see your busi-ness tap into new customers,” Strmec says. “A word of experience in handling it though: initially, we restricted access to our Facebook account to the digital communications manager. While this initially made sense, we found that com-munication needs to flow faster. So we gave everyone on the front line access to our account and had trainings on how to use Facebook. This has led to much more vibrant and interesting site than we had and has been part of our satisfaction with this new way of communication.”

West says that their Lowrey dealers find Facebook a bit of a mixed bag right now – some are very interested, some see it as shallow and hype. But “it’s time to evaporate the hype around Facebook and show dealers that it is a valid marketing tool. So we’re encouraging our dealers to pursue social media. This business has always been about the more people who know who you are and what you do the more you can get them involved [in mu-

sic making].” He says one of their deal-ers has 4,400 contacts from social media. “How many of those people joined an or-gan class and stepped into the program?”

“We encourage our dealers to do anything they can online,” Love says. In many ways social networking is more suited for dealers than manufacturers be-cause they can create communications between them and their community about recitals, lessons, and other events going on at the store. He cites one Kawai dealer, Lacefield in St. Louis, as one do-ing a good job with their online presence. “They have fun with it.”

“Today, I know some of our dealers have really great things going on that, especially on the education side,” An-derson says. I see some have teachers and students social networking, which is great.” But he does admit that sometimes whether or not a dealer is active in these areas is directly related to whether or not they have someone on their staff savvy about it. “But the ones that aren’t using social media, should be.”

“We work with our dealers to bring them up to speed, creating a lot of video,


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a video brochure, a dealer web kit, and other things,” Anderson says, adding that they set up dealers so “surfers don’t leave their site, but everything appears to be from them.”

Future“Facebook today is critical but who

knows – it might go the way of MySpace,” says Girouard. “We’ll see how making the company public affects it.”

Strmec too points out that the future is unclear, as is Facebook’s preeminence.

Yet, Hailun is “sure that the desire of consumers to stay connected to each oth-er will not wane. As a manufacturer it is an invaluable to be present and active.”

Kiesche adds that rather than a mat-ter of if or if not social networking is important, what’s important is how it’s used to complement the work of dealers and manufacturers. “Social networking is important and will continue to be,” Kiesche says. “It will be another of sev-eral communication channels to reach customers and dealers.”

“The future of Facebook is unclear, and who knows where it will be five or 10 years from now,” agrees Love. “But for now it is the dominant one on the block. Just go out in public, ride the subway, and look at what the kids are doing – they are online as they walk down the sidewalk. So this stuff is in-grained into the fabric of our culture at this point.”

“Going forward, social media’s im-portance is only going to increase,” Gi-rouard adds. “It’s just really important to have a social media strategy now. It doesn’t matter if you’re a musician, a piano store, a manufacturer, a distribu-tor – it’s vital in our area because of the sheer number of people using it. We as an industry have to go to where the people are. I will add that I do see an evolution toward smaller, more focused networking. You’re already starting to see the younger generation using [plat-forms] other than Facebook,” and be more interest-specific. “That would be much more valuable.”

“Yes we think it’s here to stay and we are likely just glimpsing the tip of the iceberg,” says Lagomarsino. “The statistics in favor of social media mar-keting are astounding and show grow-ing relevance daily. Facebook, Twit-ter, YouTube, and other social media venues present an opportunity that did not exist 10 years ago. It’s not for ev-erybody, but for those of us who have experienced the benefits, it’s an excit-ing medium that presents excellent po-tential for the future.”

“We live in a constant environment of change,” says Skidmore. “The key is to be on the forefront of our ever-changing marketplace. We must be ever vigilant as to what are the key in-ducements to purchasing our products at any given moment in time. Every successful manufacturer and dealer can attribute much of that success by their ability to adapt to the changing demands of the consumer. We have no doubt that shopping habits will con-tinually evolve. Social networking will certainly evolve as well. Into what, no one knows. But we love the many ways that we all can display our wares in the marketplace of today.”


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MMR: So tell us about your relationship with Petrof.

Basilios Strmec: Our relation-ship with the Petrof factory and [CEO] Zuzana Petrof goes back many years. If you know a little bit about the personal involvement and sacrifices that Zuzana and her father Ian Petrof shouldered to keep the Petrof brand intact, you can

only have the deepest admiration for the company.

On a more personal level, there is so much that connects us. Zuzana grew up in the beautiful city of Hradec Kralove, just about 300 kilometers north from my hometown of Vienna, Austria. For centu-ries both territories were connected cul-turally and politically. It’s easy to see that

our skill set and the team that we have in the U.S. would strengthen Petrof’s North America sales and branding.

MMR: What is appealing about Petrof instruments to you?

BS: The instruments are built in the European tradition. Few people know that the construction design of the outer

“ You do not need to create far-fetched and misleading marketing messages to tell Petrof’s story. If a customer wants the ‘real thing,’ Petrof is it.”

with Hailun’s Basilios Strmec

Petrof Partners with Hailun for Distribution DealVienna International, which handles the Hailun and Sauter piano brands, recently announced a partner-ship with Petrof. Hailun CEO Basilios Strmec sat down with MMR to discuss the details, and what to expect from Petrof in the future.

Basilios Strmec

Petrof Q&A.indd 40 8/16/12 11:40 AM


rim of some Petrof grand models is only shared with one other manufacturer, and that’s Bösendorfer.

Since the Petrof family has reclaimed control of the factory after decades of Communist mismanagement, the quality has surged closer to the standard it had before the factory was nationalized. To-day, Petrof is a jewel in the piano industry. We love the sound of Petrof pianos. The model Pasat is a personal favorite of mine. What a powerful and enchanting piano!

So Petrof appealed to us as our com-pany, Vienna International, Inc., has a tradition of representing genuine, au-thentic brands. I believe that customers today continue to prefer real brands with a factual history to synthetic “created” brands whose historic relevance is at best contorted and at worst pure fabrication. The piano building tradition of Petrof goes back to 1864. You do not need to create far-fetched and misleading mar-keting messages to tell Petrof’s story. If a customer wants the “real thing,” Petrof is it.

MMR: Tell us a little about the history of Petrof and how it relates to this partnership.

BS: For many years the success of Petrof relied on market arbitrage. The im-porter at the time bought products from the Communist economic block at very low prices and despite adding uncommonly high distribution margins, was still able to offer the dealer a European instrument at a comparatively low wholesale cost. This was only possible as long as Petrof functioned under Communist management. Once the Czech Republic entered the free market economy, the factory’s cost increased. To-day costs for labor and material are similar to Germany and Austria.

This price shift will affect the mar-ket as Petrof will assert its position as a highest quality in the market and yet be a value leader. Customers will continue to be thrilled to be able to purchase a Eu-ropean made instrument of the highest caliber at reasonable price.

4th and 5th generation: Jan Petrof, Zuzana Petrofova, Ivana Petrofova, Dagmar Petrofova.

Circa 1935: Ansingh Pianos was the Petrof dealer at the time for Holland and was one of the most success-ful merchants in Western Europe. As evident in the photos, Petrof had a complete commitment to handmade pianos, which is now a characteristic of the present-day company, as well.



MMR: Will this affect your other two piano brands? How does it all fit together?

BS: In addition to Petrof, we also ser-vice the North American market with Sauter pianos from Germany as well as Hailun instruments from China. We feel that these brands fit very well together. They are all strong, independent, and healthy brands with their own history and place in the market. They also at-tract different customers.

Internally, the most obvious advan-tage is that we do not incur additional costs for our sales staff to travel and be actively involved in their territories. It also allows us to provide to our mer-chants some of the best sales profession-als and consultants in North America who have in depth experience across price points.

MMR: What are some ideas on promoting Petrof?

BS: We see over time promotional synergies between our brands. I believe that many piano dealers would appre-ciate marketing support across price-points that allow their promotional dol-lar to go farther. I am thinking about road shows with instruments from sev-eral makers where appropriate. What a treat for a customer to be able to come in to try at one time several special instru-ments of various makers that a merchant usually would not be able to keep in stock or present under regular circumstances.

Because times are challenging, ac-tive piano merchants appreciate active promotional support. For Petrof we have launched the “Spring in Prague” promo-tion. Every customer who purchases a grand piano between August 2012 and February 2013 will be invited along with a companion to a magical visit of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe along with a tour of the Petrof factory and the chance to meet the Petrof family.

MMR: That sounds like an exciting promotion – what’s the underlying message of it?

BS: In our experience such a promotion has the power to stir regional markets as customers seek to connect with more than just equipment. Providing romance and making their purchase meaningful be-

yond the purchase transaction is a key to success. “Spring in Prague” will be the first among several promotions to give our dealer network sales tools that will set them apart and provide them with the edge needed.

MMR: Are there additional plans?

BS: Yes. Another important arm of our company will the National Petrof Service Center. We will offer full restora-tion, rebuilding, and refurbishing service on a European quality level to customers for any brand. This will allow customers to tap into a trusted name for taking care of their beloved instrument. Long time service manager Paul Rea will head the center. He has been trained at the Petrof factory and has had over 35 years of re-building experience. We hope that deal-ers will tap into this resource to further strengthen the Petrof reputation and catch another segment of business for their store.

MMR: To those who are already Petrof dealers, what do you want them to know?

BS: First, on behalf of Zuzana Petrof I want to thank you for your good work over the last years. It is an honor for us to represent Petrof and serve the Petrof dealer family. Mrs. Lauren Wallace, VP of Sales, and Mr. Joe Defio, Sales Execu-tive West, look forward to working with you. They are some of the finest sales consultants in the industry with deep experience on the retail side. We look forward to supporting Petrof merchants across North America.


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Piano & Keyboard

That legacy is com-ing into play again as the company unveils four new models in its portable digi-tal piano line, Privia. With the addition of the new PX-150, PX-350, PX-750, and PX-850, Casio is promising the next step in authentic-ity in portable keyboards. MMR recently spoke with Casio General Manager Mike Martin about the new products, which the compa-ny introduced at Summer NAMM.

“Everything under the hood of these pianos has been redesigned,” Martin says. Users familiar with the Privia will find significant advances like a rede-signed 88-note Tri-sensor Scaled Ham-mer Action Keyboard, a new propri-etary sound source called the Acoustic and intelligent Resonator (AiR). Some

models are capable of up to 256 notes of polyphony (doubling the previous best of 128 notes) and have the ability to record 44.1kHz .wav files directly to USB drives.

“Casio’s specialty is technology and minia-turization,” says Martin. “That’s what we’ve been doing since the ‘60s. In the case of the Privia, it’s an LSI chip that Casio has designed to expand the po-

lyphony. It’s not an off-the-shelf Motor-ola chip. I think that’s where you’ll find that Casio’s electronics expertise will re-ally help you more so than a lot of the traditional acoustic piano manufacturers who try to do this kind of thing.”

In another first, the 750 and 850 mod-els are designed as furniture models, a move that may prove an attractive reason

for traditional piano dealers to look into the longtime electronics company, which Casio has been working to facilitate in recent years. Casio built a reputation in the early ‘80s with the small CZ-101 syn-thesizer (now a coveted collectible) and the iconic and affordable Casiotone line of consumer keyboards, but products like the Privia and the sophisticated XW se-ries synthesizers have marked an attitude shift.

“We’ve been on a mission to change Casio’s brand image,” says Martin. “As the product gets better, that makes it eas-ier. We’re working towards making Casio into a more prestigious brand. Don’t get me wrong – we still think it’s important to have the products we do in the mass market in order to seed new musicians, but the primary direction of our compa-

A Privileged PositionCasio unveils the next generation of Privia digital pianos

Many of the hallmarks of the Space Age contain the familiar Casio logo, so near to that of NASA that

consumers may well have interconnected feelings toward the two. The world’s first all-electric compact

calculator, the Casiotron watch with calendar fuctions, the G-Shock watch – these groundbreaking products

all marked huge strides in a world of ever-shrinking and faster-performing technology.

Mike Martin

Casio.indd 44 8/16/12 11:39 AM


ny is to get products aimed at the music dealer.”

The Privia line was first introduced eight years ago, though this year marks the first round of updates since 2009. The line is known as affordable and impressively portable, but the technol-ogy has advanced quickly. “With the first Privia models, we were the first to

get down to 25 pounds on an 88-key piano,” says Martin. With the new models, he points to the keyboard as a notable improvement. The processor is able to create the effect of sympathetic resonance in the keyboard’s sound, es-sentially emulating an acoustic piano’s tendency for the strings of held notes to continue to resonate as additional keys are played. The new Privias also boast scaled hammer action – players will find that the resistance in the bass keys of the keyboard is heavier than that of those on the far end of the keyboard, they way it would feel in an acoustic piano.

It’s a product that the company has high hopes for as a game changer in the digital piano market.

“People used to say, ‘Privia’s good for the money,’” says Martin. “That’s no longer the case – this is a really big step.” Perhaps even a giant leap.

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Show Report

“The dealers and exhibitors

who came to Summer NAMM

were laser-focused on success,”

observes NAMM president and

CEO Joe Lamond. “The NAMM

U courses were full, the Top

100 Dealer Awards event was a

‘who’s who’ in music retailing,

and the vendor community came

ready to help dealers plan the fall

and holiday selling season.

“Next year, we’ll build on this plat-form and move into the new state of the art Music City Center. Scheduled to open just prior to Summer NAMM, this venue will be an outstanding place for our members to show new products, plan out the rest of the year’s purchases and learn and network with their friends and peers”

Official statistics indicate that Sum-mer NAMM saw more overall business than last year – the number of retail buy-ers increased 20 percent compared to 2011. Additionally, there was a reported nine percent increase in exhibitors from 2011 to 2012, with a total of 372 suppli-ers.

Summer NAMM 2012Some Numbers Up, Mood Generally Upbeat, Expectations High for Next Year’s New Facility…

But do attendance figures tell the whole tale? After each significant MI trade show, MMR hears from at least a few who believe reported numbers were “padded” and stats inflated to put an unrealistically upbeat spin on things. Sometimes such comments come off as nothing more than sour grapes or just flat out negativity for the sheer sake of it. Other times, though, it’s hard not to agree that “official” reports need to be taken with a grain of salt...

So what to make of Nashville 2012? Based on what we witnessed and the feedback we received from those whom we spoke with, it’d seem that NAMM’s take on the gathering is fair-ly spot-on: The Summer convention is unquestionably a smaller (smaller than Anaheim, Fankfurt, or China, but hardly “small”) show, a show that may still be “finding its way back” after the initial departure from “Music City USA” a few years ago and the subsequent nation-wide recession, but one that definitely has its supporters, a show where business is done and meaningful connections are made. It’s a show with its own unique character and appeal.

While many noted the absence of certain dealers (and suppliers), when compared to “the good old days” of Summer NAMM, at The Summer NAMM end-of-show drum circle.

Summer NAMM 2012.indd 46 8/16/12 1:41 PM


the same time most reported that the small-er scale of the Nashville get-together allows for more worthwhile conversations between vendors, suppliers, and distributors. In oth-er words: the three days on the show floor in Tennessee seem to have been more about quality than quantity.

“Summer NAMM is still a place that I can go to meet with 30-40 quality con-tacts in our industry over three days, which makes it worth my time,” said D’Addario’s Peter D’Addario. “Business was steady, we met with several dealers and it was worth our while to be there. We don’t expect to write much business at the trade show, but we still do some busi-ness in our booth. The NAMM show has transitioned over the years from a sales show to a ‘show and tell’ type event.”

Monte Montefusco of Taylor Gui-tars had a similar assessment, saying, “Taylor Guitars approaches the Sum-mer NAMM show as an opportunity to thank our dealers for their support dur-ing the first half of the year. If you look around our display area, you won’t see order forms or sales managers pressur-ing dealers for purchase orders... The pace of the Nashville show allows us to spend time with our existing retail part-ners and get to know potential new deal-ers. My perception was that dealers are more positive and upbeat than they were in 2011. Business for Taylor continues to be stronger than ever and our dealers are reporting positive sell-through statis-tics. I feel great people, great fun, and of course great music will continue to bring NAMM members to Nashville.”

“Summer NAMM continues to be a great place to have productive and mean-ingful meetings with retailers,” agreed David Jahnke of Hal Leonard. “The fact that it’s not an overwhelming sensory overload show like Winter NAMM gives us the opportunity to dig in deeper with the dealers who are there.”

Mike Shellhammer of Morgan Hill Music tied in the relative dearth of at-tending dealers to the evolving nature of MI retail and Internet sales: “I hate to say it, but there are a lot less dealers now than in years past. You have the big chain stores: Musicians Friend, Sweet-water, Amazon, et cetera. After that, the pickings get skinny. It is really tough for an independent retailer to make it now unless he is Internet-based and knows that business side of it. I think that you will see a day where dealers have a show-

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1. Kyser Musical Products, Inc.: Randall Williams, Milton Kyser, Meredith Hamlin, Gary Hanser (of Davitt and Hanser), and Nicholas Palmer. 2. Mike and Irwin Berg of Humes & Berg Inc. 3. Tony Varando and Pablo Manichelli of GCV SoundTech, Inc. 4. Hal Leonard Corporation: David Jahnke and Larry Morton. 5. Louis Wu of Ohana Ukuleles. 6. Bryan Eagle of Saint Blues. 7. Tom Bedell of Two Old Hippies. 8. ChordBuddy’s Travis Perry. 9. Leanne McClellon of Kala Brand Music. 10. Ziggy Haspod of Monster Marketing with Paul Christian of Big Joe Stompbox Company. 11. Pete LaPlaca and Robert Landis of Phaeton/Dakota. 12. Tim Pfouts and Bryan Trembley of SIT Strings. 13. The Harris Brothers – Michael and Marc of Harris Musical Products. 14. Hap Kuffner of NS Designs and Andreas Mayer of HK Audio. 15. Martin Reichhart and Phil Betette, Yorkville Sound, Inc.


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1. D’Addario & Company, Inc.: Peter D’Addario, Brian Vance, and David Via. 2. Korg USA, Inc.: Mike Bradley, Brian Piccolo, and Joe Castronovo. 3. Sean Zhang and Paul Chu of Hunter Musical Instur-ments. 4. Florence and Will Cornell of AMV Sales and Consultation. 5. Allen Gatchell and Steve Crisafulli of Gatchell Violin Co. 6. Anthony Perri and Tony Tucci of Perri’s Leathers. 7. Hamilton Stands’ Bill Carpenter. 8. John Musselman of American Way Marketing. 9. CAD Audio’s Jeff Beck. 10. Dave Lewis, WD Music Products. 11. Joe Arias of Crafter USA. 12. Jim Odum and Steve Oppen-heimer of PreSonus. 13. Asterope’s Dariush Rad and Fishman’s Larry Fishman at the Press Conference announcing an alliance and distribution agreement between the two companies. 14. James Py and Jonathan Tai of Peak Music Stands. 15. Sonic Distribution’s Bob Reardon. 16. Tom and Kevin Dougherty with Andy Garrigue of TKL. 17. Mey America: Amanda Potts, Scott Ebersole, and Brian Allen. 18. Leonardo Baroncini and Susan Baroncini-Moe of DrumMax. 19. Sue VanderSchans and Mike Martin of Casio Amer-ica, Inc. 20. Trey Smith and Harold Smith of Sound Enhancer. 21. James Santiago of Voodoo Labs.

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room with only one of each product to show and that product will not be for sale, just display. If the customer wants one, he will step to one of the dealers ded-icated computers and order it. Or have a sales associate help him place the or-der on his smartphone. Kind of sad, but that is what I see. Look at how a lot of your own shopping habits have changed now, and it is just beginning. Kind of scary. It doesn’t really affect the manu-facturers that much, as we just sell more products to less dealers and Internet sales companies. We would like to sell more to the independent dealers, but it is not our choice. It is just the effect of the paradigm shift in retail that is going on right now. Just my thoughts.”

New Digs = New Life?There was also widespread curiosity

– and in some cases, overt optimism – about the effect that the new facility for

2013 Summer NAMM might have on at-tendance and exhibitor count. “I believe the new convention center will spur an increase in manufacturer and dealer at-tendance at Summer NAMM,” asserted Montefusco. “Having a brand new facil-ity to display gear and spend one-on-one

For more observations and comments from the likes

of Harvey Levy, Mike Matthews, and many

more, scan this QR Code to view interviews from

the Show floor.

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Construction continues at the new Music City Center.


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1. Todd Newman of Breezy Ridge Instruments, Stan Burg of GuitarVista, Mary-Faith Pearce of Breezy Ridge Instruments, and singer/songwriter Karl Broderix. 2. Saga Musical Instruments: Isaac Moore, Richard Keldsen, Lilliana Urosevic, and Maries Nguyen. 3. Jim and Barbara McGillivary of Four Force Amplifiers. 4. Shubb Capos’ Rick Shubb and Gary Mobley. 5. Mark Stoddard and Tony Cole of Lava Cable. 6. John Hawkins of Samick Music Corp. 7. David Jewell of Yamaha Corporation of America. 8. Jason Kennedy of KMCMusicorp. 9. Hello Music’s Rick Camino. 10. CE Distribution’s Orin Portnoy. 11. The inimitable Mike Matthews of New Sensor Corp. 12. John Coniglio, Cindy White-Overton, and Chris Pelletier of Aurora Strings. 13. At the OnBoard Research booth: Caroline, Joshua, and Rony Kaye of Ron Kayes Music, Pensacola, Fla., with Art Harvey of OnBoard, and Kyle Kaye of Ron Kayes. 14. Mark Rehfuss, Shoreview Distribution. 15. Jared Pagan of Chase Case Co. 16. Taylor Guitars’ Mike “Monte” Montefusco. 17. Jim Mack at the PreSonus Press Announcement. 18. Zach Fjestad of Blue Book Publications. 19. Mike Shellhammer and Randy Medina of Morgan Hill. 20. M-Audio’s David Frederick and Samara Winterfeld. 21. Haw-Renn Chen and Paula McNamee of H&F Technologies.

time with dealers will be a great way to fortify relationships between retailers and the brands they support.”

Harvey Levy of Levy’s Leathers be-lieves the move will spark interest with both attendees and exhibiting compa-nies, but that it’ll take a couple years to determine whether the new facility has a lasting positive impact on Summer NAMM: “I expect next year we’ll have a bunch of people coming out to see what that new convention center is like, so I don’t think you’ll be able to judge the ef-fectiveness of moving to that new facility until you do the second year.”

Others, like Jahnke, believe the new location will have a minimal, perhaps incidental, impact on next year’s Nash-ville gathering, but remains optimistic about the Show’s future: “While it’s al-ways cool to check out shiny new build-ings, we’re guessing the economy will still play the biggest part in determining the attendance at the show. There are deal-ers and vendors who are watching every penny that comes in and goes out, and that’s okay. We believe there is still a lot of interest in SNAMM and more dealers will be committed to returning once the economy improves and their business is stabilized.”

Rise & Shine…For those “morning people” who were

already up and running at full steam at 8 AM – as well as for those who dragged themselves out of bed in order to attend – the NAMM Breakfast Sessions once again proved to be a high point of the Show. The events offered insight into the industry, helpful suggestions about thriving in the current market, ample amounts of levity, and (of course) a deli-cious breakfast, on the house.

The first day of this July’s gathering kicked off with the NAMM Retail Sum-mit, featuring NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond and Chip Averwater, chairman of Amro Music Stores. The two used Averwater’s recent book, Retail

Scan this QR Code to view NAMM’s video

tour of the new Music City Center.

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1. Brian Piccolo of Korg USA, Michel Lâg Chavar-ria of Lâg Guitars, and Hap Kuffner of Kuffner International, Inc. 2. String Swing’s Paul Thieman. 3. Daniel Cooper and Melanie Dyer, Coopercopia. 4. Matthew Nuttycombe, Tom Hickey, and Ryan Loftus of Telefunken USA. 5. Mike Mulqueen of Moku Ukuleles. 6. Von and Danielle Luhmann of Pick Punch. 7. Gary Lenaire of Roland Corporation. 8. David Benedetto and Lorne Graham of NEMC. 9. Tom Freret, Scott Da-vies and Alfred Gonzalez: American DJ Supply.

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Truths: The Unconventional Wis-dom of Retailing as a springboard for conversation, as Lamond led the author through some of the larger themes discussed.

“The owner’s vision is adopted by the staff, his pri-orities become the goals, his habits become the standards, and his style becomes the cul-ture,” Lamond said early in the session, quoting from Retail Truths. Averwater expanded on the how the character – and ultimately success (or failure) of any retail operation – starts at “the top,” explaining, “It may sound funny, but I think a store really is a work of art. If you think about it, it emanates from the founder’s vision, it’s created according to his abilities and his talents, and it’s made inevitably unique by our own personalities.”

Throughout the conversation, basic concepts such as effective leadership, focus, and adaptability were hammered home, with one of the primary points being that those operations that are or-ganized and dedicated to a shared vision wind up being successful. Or as Averwa-ter stated, towards the end of the morn-ing: “The one who wins is the one who gets the most details right.”

Joe Calloway was the featured speaker during the NAMM Breakfast Session on Friday, July 13, presenting a session called “Becoming a Category of One,” which focused on how to differentiate one’s busi-

ness from the competition. Calloway’s in-troduction featured an image of three red apples in a row, with a green apple set off to the side, and the question, “How do you get to be the green apple instead of anoth-er red apple?” Setting one’s business apart from the competition is the key to market share, he noted, and there are a number of ways to achieve this: customer service, a good story line, and attractive presenta-tion can help, but the key is to be the best at what matters most.

“Simple is always more effective than complicated,” said Calloway, paraphras-ing Steve Jobs. He then asked audience members to brainstorm where new ideas are found. Responses included: on air-planes, while mowing the lawn, in the car, and, of course, at the NAMM Show and during the Breakfast Sessions. Because constructive and creative ideas can be spawned in so many different areas, Cal-loway recommended looking at successful businesses in a wide array of industries to find what they’re doing well and perhaps how some of those ideas or concepts might be translated into the MI retail, distribu-tion, or manufacturing industry. “People at great companies are always looking for good ideas,” he confirmed.

While everyone in the audience agreed when Calloway suggested that constant improvement is imperative to survival, not everyone was as confident that they were constantly improving in their own businesses. To this point, Cal-loway suggested, “If you’re successful, you know what used to work.” In other words, successful business strategies must be so nimble that they can continually adapt to ever-changing demands in the marketplace.

The session closed with the reminder that ideas are worthless if they aren’t act-

Chip Averwater of Amro Music and author of Retail Truths: The Unconventional Wisdom of Retailing chats with NAMM’s Joe Lamond at Thursday morning’s Retail Summit.

Author and speaker Joe Calloway presents at the NAMM Breakfast Session on Friday, July 13.


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1. Lyndle Volz of Valvetrain Amplification with Jeff Murray and Larry Goldstein of Cort. 2. Vince Mc-Bryde of Universal Melody Services 3. Anthony Soriano and Peter Capece of Lou Capece Music Distrubtors. 4. Stan Morgan, Mark Ragin, and Chris Meikle of St. Louis Music. 5. Jason Wyrwicz of Mutec Mutes. 6. Crystal Freed and Ken Fuente of Gator Cases. 7. Axl Guitars’ Ashley Atz. 8. Mike McAndrew and Kevin Griffin of Pigtronix. 9. Michael Finklestein, Kathy Johnstone, and Antonio Ferranti of Alfred Music Publishing.

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ed upon. Joe Calloway noted, “As Andy Samburg of “Saturday Night Live” said: ‘Our show doesn’t start when it does be-cause that’s when we’re ready. It starts then because it’s 11:30 on Saturday night.’ Taking action is the only way to make ideas worthwhile, and now’s the time.”

NAMM Top 100 Dealer Awards“The Top 100 is an opportunity for

NAMM retail members to find inspira-tion in, while giving recognition to the in-novative, proactive business ideas of peers from around the country,” said NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond. “We hope that NAMM members enjoy this opportunity to celebrate success, while networking with 100 retail leaders in the music products industry in one room.”

For the second year, a panel of “im-partial, expert judges” selected by, but

not otherwise affiliated with NAMM, selected Top 100 dealers using a nu-meric rating based on five main criteria. Then, the panel scores retailers’ submis-sions for awards in ten other specific ‘Best of ’ categories. Then scores are tal-lied and stores are ranked to reveal the music product industry’s ‘Dealer of the Year.’

Dealer of the YearAlto Music, Middletown, NY

Best AdMusic Villa, Bozeman, MT

Best Curb AppealTed Brown Music Co.4 locations in Washington

Best Emerging Dealer “Rookie of the Year” Downtown Piano Works Frederick, MD

Best Emerging Dealer “Rookie of the Year”NOVA Music Center, Clifton, VA

Best Merchandise & Display (Tie)Candyman Strings & Things, Santa Fe, NM

Amro Music Stores, Inc., Memphis, TN

Best Rock School & Summer Rock CampsCandyman Strings & Things, Santa Fe, NM

Best Sales PromotionPiano Gallery, Orem, UT

Best Use of Social Media (Tie)Summerhays Music Center, Murray, UT

Music Villa, Bozeman, MT

Support Music Local Advocacy AwardAmro Music Stores, Inc., Memphis, TN

Best WebsiteThe Music Zoo, Rosyln, NY

Wanna Play “Music Makes A Difference”Candyman Strings & Things, Santa Fe, NM

Next year’s Summer Session will be held

July 11 – 13 in Nashville at the new Music City Center.

Joe Robinson performs at the NAMM Breakfast Session on Friday, July 13.

Jon Haber of Alto Music receives the ‘Dealer of the Year’ award from hostess and Nashville reporter Stephanie Langston at the Top 100 Dealer Awards Ceremony held on Friday night.



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www.levysleathers.com


Best & Worst of ShowAwards

Best ‘Oh Hey – Look Who it Is!’ SightingD’Addario’s pre-Show bash on Wednesday was, once again, one of the better shindigs of the week. In addition to delicious Jack’s BBQ, open bar, and free accessories (thanks for the drum key and guitar strings, D’Addario!), the 2012 party also fea-tured a performance from none other than John Oates, of ‘70s and ‘80s hit-making duo, Hall & Oates. Regret-tably, his glorious moustache was nowhere in sight (neither was Hall. I guess he was busy that night?), but Oates played a stellar set (Who knew he played guitar that well? Why did G.E. Smith get all the solos on the records? Weird…) and – aside from the missing ‘stache – the guy hasn’t aged a day.

Best (and Worst) BrunchAssociate editor Eliahu Sussman couldn’t (still can’t!) stop raving about the dish he ordered (lin-guine, bacon, goat cheese, and scallions topped with two fried eggs) when we visited The Southern Steak & Oyster on 3rd Avenue South. It was no doubt better than what I ate: limp lettuce mixed with ample amounts of Miracle Whip, and topped with soggy Kel-log’s Corn Pops masquerading as a Caesar Salad (not pictured).

Best Overkill in the Name of DurabilityWhile most “normal” snare drums typically feature 6-12-ply shells, DrumMax is truly maxing things out with their 50-ply snare drum, as shown in this photo with Leon-ardo Baroncini.

Worst Decision for the Cash-StrappedJust walking into Gruhn Guitars is an annual test of wills. I – no hy-perbole – desperately want (need!) about 90 percent of what’s hanging on the walls. This year’s gut-wrencher was reluctantly saying goodbye to this gorgeous 1929 Na-tional Style #2 tri-cone. (Although I’d have been pretty happy to have walked away with that 1969 Dan Armstrong bass or that ’53 Les Paul Custom, or…)

Best ‘Ok, Maybe it Is Worth That Much…’ Instrument$10,000 is a pretty steep price tag for any non-Stradivarius instru-ment, but the detail and mother-of-pearl inlay on this banjo from Axl Guitars makes a compel-ling argument for justifying the expense…

Best & Worst.indd 56 8/16/12 1:44 PM


Best ‘Well, That Clears Things Up…’ SignageThe Downtown Presbyterian Church threw us for a loop on Thursday when we walked by and read what you see in the photo above. Friday’s posting, “Sunday

Worship 11:00. Dancing Queens Welcome,” was less inherently con-tradictory, but still pretty odd.

Worst ‘Tradition’Even by today’s relatively abysmal airline-reliability standards, MMR’s “NAMM team” consistently has ter-rible, terrible luck. While associate publisher Rick Kessel made it back home without incident on Saturday night, the following evening, the editors found our projected one-hour layover in Charlotte N.C. stretching into two, then three, and ultimately five(!) hours. Getting home at 1:40 am is no fun.

Worst (Best?) WeatherA photo of the Nashville Convention Center’s outdoor sign reading “102 F” (or something similar) is a familiar sight for most longtime readers of MMR’s post-Show reports. Well… not this year. I suppose it all depends on whether you like the stifling, sticky heat that’s usually standard fare while we’re at Summer NAMM, but there’s no question that the climate this year was decidedly… un-Nashville-ish (that’s a word, right? It is now). Frequent downpours and temperatures that, on some nights, were almost “cool” (gasp!) set 2012 apart from previous trips to “Music City.” Behold the gloomy view from our room on the 17th floor at the Renaissance Hotel on Friday.

Best Wake-Up CallAssociate editor Eliahu Sussman returned from Friday’s NAMM Breakfast Session with glowing reviews for guitarist Joe Robin-son, who (says Sussman) “thrilled the sleepy audience with dazzling soulful, jazzy, and upbeat guitar work, including some lightning fast runs that earned him mid-song standing ovations (seriously, check this kid out!).”

Best Home-Away-From-HomeI’ve sung its praises in previous “Best & Worst” roundups, but it really is always a pleasure to walk through the doors to The Spring-water Supper Club & Lounge. Don’t let the fancy name fool you, though – this is a dive to trump all dives: Pool table – check; Dart boards – check; Super-sketchy clientele – check; Friendly staff who remember me – check; No surfac-es or appliances with any evidence of having been dusted or cleaned since the late ‘70s – check; Juke-box with many of my favorite tunes (and patrons who don’t assault me for playing “my music” on repeat all night long) – check. Boston used to have a handful of these types of places, but nowadays we’re virtu-ally all Irish-themed tourist “pubs” and sports bars. God bless the Springwater…

Best Press Conference TreatOn Thursday, PreSonus gathered industry folks and members of the press to announce (among other things) their acquisition of Nimbit, a direct-to-fan sales and promotion platform. The news was good for both organizations, but the highlight of the night was this delicious fried green tomato BLT!

Best & Worst.indd 57 8/16/12 1:44 PM


1. The Levy’s Leathers Team: Brett Marcus, Larry Greene & Ben Myron (OMG Music), Harvey Levy, and Garth Giesbrecht. 2. Chuck Norras of Maple Leaf Strings, artist Pattie Cossentino, and Pete LaPlaca of PJLA Music 3. Gordeon O’Hara of Retail Up! 4. Rawn Randall of Osiamo, LLC. 5. Chris Brady of Aquarian. 6. Merano Musical Instruments’ George Li. 7. Larry Fishman of Fishman Transducers, Inc., Chris Martin of C.F. Martin & Co., and Bill VomDick at the introduction of Martin’s new four-piece Retro Series. The new models were born of a project that incorporated classic Martin instruments from the ‘30s and ‘40s, Fishman tech-nology, and (Grammy Award-winning producer) VomDick’s private collection of rare vintage microphones to create new guitars that faithfully produce the sonic textures and tonal qualities of vintage instruments and recordings. 8. Timmy Dykes, Kevin Reynolds with Ashley and Dave Trout of Connolly Music/K&M Stands. 9. The SHS Team: Rob Pugh Guy Petty, Tyler Pur-due, and Grant Deaton.

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T here’s a reason why Tung-Sol is the tube of choice for boutique amp makers

like Victoria, Tone King and Dr. Z.

Favored by guitar tone junkies, the Tung-Sol 12AX7/ECC83 is the platinum standard of preamp tubes, one of the most impor-tant links in your tonal chain.

Tung-Sol 6V6GTs are the holy grail for players who revere the tone of America’s most coveted tube amps like the earliest Ampeg® Jet or Rocket.

Stepping up in power, Tung-Sol’s 6L6GC STR is a clone of this legendary Philips®

model, and delivers the ultimate in musical tone and smooth overdrive. And Tung-Sol’s EL34B will get you the legendary tones of the classic Marshall® amps of the ‘60s.

Enter the KT120, the most powerful tube in its class. As an upgrade for existing 6550/KT88 tubes, the KT120 is impervious to overload, delivering peak power with extreme reliability and almost infi nite life.

UPGRADE TO TUNG-SOL ELECTRON TUBES

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MMR59 59 8/16/12 10:30:17 AM

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1. Jerry Andreas and Dave Sanderson of SKB Cases. 2. Brian Dougherty of Samson (with a photo of Neil Peart and Peter Erskine). 3. Rapco Horizon Co: Chris Deusinger, Darius Seabaugh, James “Woody” Woodard, Tracy Dietrich, and Derek Williams. 4. Dave Lopez of Odyssey Innovative Design. 5. EMD’s Andrew Swift and Anthony Armandariz. 6. Amy Dallman of Epilog Laser. 7. Roger Yates, Robert Bankston, Kevin Patenaude, and Tyler Barrett of Chord-Buddy. 8. The Music People’s Matt Rothstein, Sharon Hennessey, Ed Corvo, and Kate Yeager, with Joel Braver of B&H Photo (Center).

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Theo is a master craftsman and creative genius. His mouthpieces have allowed me to take my music to the next level.

“

Mindi Abair

“

Featured on American Idol Touring with Aerosmith

Mindi is shown with her new signature mouthpiece.

MMR61 61 8/16/12 10:30:28 AM

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Band & Orchestra

Reed and Mouthpiece

From jazz soloists to orchestral first

chairs, reed and mouthpiece prod-

ucts are always at the front of many

of many musicians’ minds, even if it’s

been years since they last bought a new

instrument. The category is always ex-

panding, and a wide selection of these

products can help any retailer gener-

ate foot traffic and create new profits.

Thedemand for reed and mouthpieces

is one thing shops can count on.

Though the basic mechanics re-

main the same, every year brings new

approaches to materials and construc-

tion that go into creating the best and

most suitable sound for every player

imaginable. Traditional cane and hard

rubber are still prevalent, but pioneer-

ing uses for synthetics, hybrids, and

precious metals mean there’s always

something interesting to watch for

with this group. This issue, MMR takes

a wide look at the field of current reed,

mouthpiece, and ligature makers.

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OverviewDANSR / VandorenVandoren has been making reeds and mouthpiec-es since 1905. A family business in its third gen-eration, the company is now managed by Bernard Van Doren, the grandson of the founder. While music making is strongly entrenched in the Van Doren family, Bernard became an engineer and has used those skills to improve every part of the growing and manufacturing process.

The Masters mouthpiece is unlike any other Vandoren mouthpiece, featuring a unique cham-ber design built to deliver a more round, even sound from the lowest to the highest register. The response and intonation are Vandoren, but these mouthpieces are different down to the ligature. Since the outer shape of the mouthpiece is conical, allowing the unique chamber design, it requires its own ligature called the “Masters M|O” liga-ture. The Masters M|O is part of the new line of M|O ligatures that takes the highly effective channel system from the Masters ligature and couples that with the popular Optimum screw set that

pulls evenly from both sides of the mouthpiece. Between the firm holding channel system and the Optimum screw, the M|O is de-signed to provide unprecedented response

and tone quality in a light, single screw application.

www.vandoren.com

Reed & Mouthpiece.indd 62 8/16/12 1:45 PM


The nearly 90-year-old Rico Reeds was started by a clarinetist at Walt Disney studios in Los Angeles named Frank De Michele, whose uncle Joseph Rico sent him reed cane from France. The com-pany went on to create widely successful lines of products – everything from reeds and mouthpieces to straps and other ac-cessories. Since 2004, when Rico joined the D’Addario family, Rico has tripled the size of their company-owned plan-tations in France and Argentina so that 100 percent of their cane is grown on their own land. The company maintains that this allows them to ensure the high-est quality of raw material used to create their reeds. Rico is a company dedicated to using technological innovation, en-gineering, and research to produce the best possible products. That dedication

led them to invest millions in automated blanking machines – the most precise reed production system in the world – and precision milling machines.

Rico’s latest product is the new Rico Reserve – the world’s first 100 percent precision-milled rod rubber, vintage-inspired B♭ clarinet mouthpiece and was designed with inspiration from some of the great mouthpieces from the 1920’s. The Reserve mouthpiece combines vin-tage design with special, highly accurate production techniques to provide the per-fect balance of tone and feel. There are three options of tip opening to meet the demands of the most discriminating art-ist, including 1.00, 1.05, and 1.10. Rico reeds are made in the USA and are avail-able in a variety of cuts and strengths. Many of the artists involved in creating

the Reserve mouthpiece, including Mark Nuccio of the NY Philharmonic, Lee Livengood of the Utah Symphony, and Richie Hawley of Rice University, also helped design (and now exclusively use) Reserve reeds.www.ricoreeds.com

Rico Reeds

Légère

Martin Lesher

The Martin Lesher Reed Company has been producing high quality dou-ble reeds for more than three decades. Their standard oboe and bassoon reeds are made in f ive strengths (soft, medium soft, medium, medium hard,

and hard). For those who prefer wired oboe reeds, the company of-fers these in medium soft, medium, and medium hard strengths. They also make Martin Lesher Artist oboe and bassoon reeds, and Martin

Lesher Pro oboe reeds - all in me-dium hard. The company welcomes new dealers and offer free shipping on orders prepaid by check or Visa or Mastercard.www.martinlesher.com

EmeraldMany generations of double reed players have used Em-erald Reeds. Available at a reasonable price, our oboe and bassoon reeds are made from the fin-est French cane and are offered in five playing strengths - soft, medium soft, medium, medium hard, and hard.In addi-tion, we supply the Emer-ald Artist reeds for oboe and bassoon. Emerald Reeds are available from many reputable dis-tributors.www.emeraldreed.com

Légère Reeds began in 1998 and is fo-cused on creating premium synthetic clarinet and saxophone reeds. They’re currently played by members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras as well as having seen action in over 50 Broadway shows. Their patented Signature Series reeds have an almost invisible spine down the center allowing the reed to vi-brate not only vertically but also across the tip thereby simulating a very high end cane reed.

The company has also created an educational program

called Sound Results, which allows Lé-gère to give reeds at no cost to schools or programs in poor areas to kids who cannot afford to buy them.

The company has recently rede-signed its logo for elegant displays and packaging. It is also looking forward to

the release of a new Baritone Saxophone Signature Series Reed, replacing the current design, as well as the unveil-ing of its first bassoon reed, which is cur-rently being evaluated in test markets around the world.www.legere.com



Forestone ReedsTokyo-based Forestone Reeds bases their company on a decades-long re-search and development mission to de-velop high quality reeds made of hybrid cane/synthetic materials. The company has been on the market for about two years now, finding distribution around the world (it works through SLM in the US).

The company offers a variety of hy-brid reeds for saxophones (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Baritone) and clarinets (French and German). The company’s

latest products include the Unfiled Alto, the Unfiled Tenor, and B♭ Clarinet Pre-mium Cut. The unfiled cut is designed for artists looking for a typical jazz sound

out of the ‘50s and ‘60s, with a strong attack and punch and a bal-anced core. The Clari-

net Premium Cut Is built to offer more re-sistance than the standard Forestone model and designed for professional use. Both products leave the back part of the reed rough in a process they call “G-Tuned.”www.forestone-japan.com

Maccaferri ReedsFrench American Reeds, in business since 1939, is behind the complete line of “Mac-caferri” clarinet and saxophone reeds. The company’s “My Masterpiece” and “Popu-laire” reeds are a legacy left by musician and designer Mario Maccaferri, a highly sought-after Luthier of the ‘30s. He con-ceived and de-signed his reeds af-ter leaving Selmer in the 1930s. He brought his “French-American” reed business from France to the USA and began a tradi-tion of producing the highest quality reed using his exclusive design and production techniques, which continues today under the direction of his daughter, Eliane Mac-caferri Reese.

The company has been a reed-pro-ducing mainstay dating from the Big Band Era of the ‘40s to the present, manufactured in the US from imported superior quality cane and used by profes-sional performers in the classical and jazz fields as well as students. The company says it’s looking forward to the introduc-tion a new reed profile later this year, de-signed especially for the professional or more advanced student.

Private label work with individualized packaging is a specialty with French-American Reeds – the company works closely with customers who prefer their own brand.www.frenchamericanreeds.com

BARIIt was 1952 when BARI founder Wolfe Taninbaum developed his first synthetic reed, one of the earliest to gain accep-tance from some of the world’s top mu-sicians. Today, BARI is the manufac-turer of the BARI “Original” and BARI “Star” synthetic reeds, and it maintains

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a shop with the flexibility to customize BARI mouthpieces along with specializ-ing in private-label programs in plastic, hard rubber, and metal. The production line of Bari Woodwind mouthpieces in-clude ebonite mouthpieces, hard rubber mouthpieces, synthetic mouthpieces, a metal mouthpiece for saxophone clari-net, bass clarinet, soprano, alto sax, ten-or saxophone and baritone.

Current products include the EspritTM brand, designed as a free-blowing and easily playable plastic mouthpiece that is value-priced for students. The BARI rubber mouthpiece line is built to provide a highly responsive,

rich, warm tone for jazz and concert use. The Ba-

roque line of ebonite mouthpieces is for the discriminating classical

player. Popular metal mouthpiece brands

include BARI Gold StandardTM, WT IITM, WT IIITM, and Hawk IITM. Today’s WT IITM and WT IIITM mouthpieces are said to be improved copies of the original. They were de-

signed to produce a dark, husky reso-nance that was coveted by saxophonists. The Hybrid line, introduced four years ago, is part metal and part hard rubber. The fusion of the two materials makes for the unique performance and sound, with the comfort and feel of hard rubber combined with the weight of the metal, resulting in an increased versatility.

New this year are Hybrid Stainless mouthpieces, designed for a warmer, darker sound. BARI is also introduc-ing a brand new mouthpiece called the Cyclone, considered to be the loudest mouthpiece on the market. The Cyclone is a metal mouthpiece with three patents on its design, including a double liga-ture. www.bariwoodwind.com

Lomax ClassicLomax Classic has been handcraft-ing world class woodwind mouthpieces since 1997. Lomax Classic mouthpieces are used in many of the world’s fin-est orchestras and bands, including the London Symphony, BBC Orchestra, US Navy Band, and many others. The com-pany also offers fine student mouthpieces

which feature a hand finished facing like their professional models. These student mouthpieces – the Prelude series – are available for B♭ clarinet, bass clarinet, alto sax, and tenor sax, and will com-pare very favorably with more expensive, mass produced professional mouthpieces. www.lomaxclassic.com

BG Franck BichonThe Lyon, France-based BG Franck Bichon woodwind company manufac-tures a full line of accessories, including over 200 ligatures, mouthpieces, straps, swabs, stands and more, operating under a vision to “constantly innovate wood-wind accessories for functionality and de-sign.” BG opened the USA branch of the company in November 2011 to manage marketing, customer service, and artist relations, through Jessica Watts. With that office, based in Dallas, BG has more


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focus on the US market and the needs of customers more directly.

This year, BG launched the new Sil-ver Duo ligature, which fits both B♭ clar-inet and alto saxophone mouthpieces. The Duo’s minimum-contact design was created to allow the player to express a

freer, bigger, and more expressive sound than other ligatures. The one screw, solid-hold-ing design gives the musician con-fidence that their

performance will not be compromised.BG also launched the brand new

Tenor Sax Mouthpiece in one facing this year. Based on the Zinner blank, all mouthpieces are finished by Zinner in Germany and pre-tested in France for the highest consistency and quality control. The current BG range of mouth-pieces includes two facings for B♭ clari-net and two facings for Alto. All acoustic products are designed by Serge Bichon (Franck Bichon’s father), who was the sax teacher of several world-renowned saxo-phonists, including Claude Delangle and

the Habanera Quartet. More models are on the way.www.bgfranckbichon.com

JodyJazzInitially a collaboration between NYC musician and jazz education Jody Espina and legendary saxophonist/mouthpiece maker Santy Runyon, JodyJazz mouth-pieces have been in operation since 1999. They’ve created a number of popular saxophone and clarinet mouthpieces, including the JodyJazz Classic, which includes a removable baffle with a sec-ondary reed that vibrates and disturbs the sound waves inside the mouthpiece

to create harmonics and more projec-tion. Other models include the Norteño (designed specifically for Latin styles like Rockero, Banda, Mariachi, Cumbia, and more), DV (24kt gold sax mouthpieces), Classic Clarinet (made from JodyJazz’s proprietary polycarbonate alloy and syn-

thetic rubber), and a variety of accesso-ries and ligatures.

This summer, JodyJazz purchased the building that they’ve used as a headquar-ters and purchased a new CNC machine to help meet current demand and move aggressively toward new models on the drawing board. The company has also developed a successful publishing op-erations featuring play-along CDs with many contemporary greats, including Donald Harrison.www.jodyjazz.com

Clark W. FobesCalifornia woodwind specialist Clark W. Fobes not only offers a full line of fine woodwind mouthpieces and barrels, he is an active performer in Bay Area orchestras and can be heard on numer-ous film soundtracks. Fobes launched his own brand of mouthpieces in 1990 and introduced the “Debut” line of student mouthpieces in 1993.

“They are very affordable for stu-dents and play extremely well,” he says. “I believe that many stores and parents don’t want to spend $100 on hard rubber mouthpieces for beginning students and


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my Debut mouthpiece which has been successful for almost 20 years is well posi-tioned to fill that need.”

Last year, Clark W Fobes became the exclusive North American distributor of Pilgerstorfer clarinet reeds. These reeds are made with premium French cane

from the Var. Alexander Pilgerstorfer of Austria gained the rights to manufacture reeds under the old Morre name and is making reeds in that style.

The company has plans for a new syn-thetic barrel dubbed the “HDP” (High Density Polymer), built as an exact dupli-cate of Fobes’s popular wood barrel, with an expected list price of $80 and an un-veiling at TMEA in San Antonio (mid-February 2013). These fine barrels can be played by students and professionals. In the saxophone department, the Fobes is working on both an alto sax mouthpiece and a tenor mouthpiece built similarly to the old Gregory “Hollywood” 18M mouthpieces. www.clarkwfobes.com

Theo WanneThe Theo Wanne woodwind compa-ny continues to expand on its scope of woodwind mouthpiece and instruments in categories including baritone, tenor, alto and soprano saxophone, as well as clarinet and flute. Mouthpieces include a full range of bright-to-dark mouthpiec-es, including their lines of Durga, Kali, Amma, Gaia, and Ambika mouthpieces.

The company recently released its first instrument – the MANTRA tenor saxophone. It includes over 30 innova-tions and features (and was rated a Top 50 product at NAMM 2012 by MMR). The saxophone includes a revolutionary new neck design with an isolated brace

and cartridge ball bearing octave key and redesigned neck tube shape. The MANTRA is designed for a full bodied sound and incredible ease of play across the full range of the saxophone.

The company recently developed its first medium chamber mouthpiece, the MANTRA mouthpiece. It was uniquely designed for its new MANTRA saxo-phone in-line with its full bodied, huge projecting sound.

All mouthpieces and critical parts for Theo Wanne instruments are de-signed and manufactured in Bellingham,

Washington. Their products are manu-factured using the same ISO 9000 strin-gent standards required for aerospace and medical components. The company works closely with many of the world’s top musicians such as Gerald Albright, Nelson Rangell, Tim Price, Mindi Abair and many others. www.theowanne.com

RovnerHistorically, Rovner Products has pro-duced a number of top notch mouth-pieces. For the past several years, founder


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Phil Rovner has been focusing primarily on ligatures. The original Rovner Dark, intro-duced in the 1970s, remains one of the best-selling ligatures worldwide. But Rovner recently developed several Next Generation™ ligatures for cost-effective man-ufacturing, passing that savings along to his customers. Despite their relatively modest price tags, these new, patented models take Rovner’s basic design con-cepts and broaden their scope.

Many of Rovner’s different ligatures are suitable for specific styles. The Star Series, with is exceptional resonance, works

well for the acoustic jazz player and for the developing student

with an immature embouchure. Jazz players and marching band play-

ers are drawn to the increased facility, presence, and projection of the Legacy. The Platinum is Rovner’s first all-metal ligature, offering a pure, dark tone, en-hanced response and evenness of scale, and works well with synthetic reeds. The

Versa-X is the most recent addition to the line of Next Generation ligatures. It includes repositionable flaps and newly-designed high-grade metal alloy cradle. This ligature received an SBO magazine “Best Tools for Schools” honor at the 2012 NAMM.

There are currently eight Rovner ligatures models, offering anywhere from 11 to 24 sizes per model. Rovner Products also provides a full line of ac-cessories www.rovnerproducts.com

J.J. Babbitt Co. The J.J. Babbitt Company, Inc. produces several hundred thousand clarinet and saxophone mouthpieces per year. Estab-lished in 1919 by Jesse James Babbitt, the company caters to everyone from begin-ners to seasoned professionals through an association of distributors and manu-facturers of OEM mouthpieces. They make mouthpieces from plastic and hard rubber that is molded and vulcanized in-house. The company also works with various metals including brass, stainless steel, and 24K gold plating.

J.J. Babbitt’s newest line of products is the Otto Link Vintage mouthpiece for tenor saxophone, introduced a few years ago to celebrate the company’s 90th anniversary. The mouthpieces were designed to recapture the retro sound of the original Otto Link mouthpieces, which had seen their design shifted little by little over the decades in the standard

product lines. The Vintage mouthpiece is available with the same standard tip openings as current Otto Link models and comes in a choice of metals with 24-karat gold plating or hard rubber. www.jjbabbitt.com

Conn-SelmerThe esteemed Conn-Selmer brand con-tinues to enjoy popularity with its Selmer C* mouthpiece, but the Elkhart, Indi-ana-based manufacturer and distributer (and subsidiary of Steinway Musical In-

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struments) operates a vast of-fering of products and brands. With names like Selmer Paris, Eugene Rousseau, Vandoren, Ted Johnson, and many more, Conn-Selmer offers a full range of mouthpieces in any type, size, and price point.

As the exclusive North American distributor of Gonzalez, the company has decided to take a different approach to building demand for an al-ternative brand of reeds and recently de-clared that Gonzalez is not to be sold by

dealers through the Internet. This move was designed to give local dealers a line of quality reeds that are free from down-ward price pressure, allowing them build demand in their local markets ensuring strong gross profits. The company tested this model a few years ago with the intro-duction of Primo, also made by Gonzalez as an economical beginner reed, and they report that sales have been very strong as dealers continue to develop their markets around this product.www.conn-selmer.com

American Way Marketing / FAXXAmerican Way Marketing offers a wide variety of high quality, professional level woodwind mouthpieces, including their own FAXX brand. FAXX mouthpieces

are crafted by top manufacturers in both the USA and Europe, strategically se-lected based upon demand from retail-ers and end user requests. New models from FAXX include the Giardinelli-style for French horn, trumpet 1.25C & 7B, flugelhorn 3C & 5C, trombone/eupho-nium 51D, B♭ clarinet FX45 & 5MHL, and the square chamber C* for alto and tenor saxes.

The latest mouthpieces introduced by American Way are the Silver Line

mouthpieces for saxophones from Peter Ponzol, made of a custom Delrin mate-rial. Other brands distributed by AWM

include Babbitt, BARI, B & S, Claude Lakey, Denis Wick, Guy Hawkins, Mey-er, Otto Link, Peter Ponzol, Portnoy, Ted Johnson, Vandoren, Warburton, Wolfe Tayne and Yamaha. www.americanwaymktg.com

Beechler/ARB Mouthpieces Remle Musical Products, Inc. makes the Beechler and ARB Saxophone and Clarinet Mouthpieces. Those based on Elmer Beechler have been in pro-duction for over 60 years, while the ARB mouth-pieces were de-signed by Arnold Brilhart and have been in produc-tion since 1978.

Oboe & Bassoon Reeds

MARLIN LESHER

email: [email protected]

P.O. Box 1004 • Port Townsend, WA 98368

Call or Fax for more information

Toll Free Phone: 1-800-272-1948

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Remle offers a wide selection of materi-als, facings, and bore sizes. Materials include stainless steel, hard rubber, gold plate, and composites. Diamond mouth-pieces come in three bore sizes and, while facing is available from two to 10. Stain-less steel mouthpieces come in one bore size and a facing of three to 10. Larger tip openings are available on request.

All Beechler/ARB mouthpieces are finished with a hand facing and are all play tested before leaving the shop. Cus-tom made mouthpieces are also avail-able. www.beechler.com

BackunDesigned in collaboration between Mor-rie Backun and Ricardo Morales, Back-un Musical Services’ MoBa mouthpiece line has become one of the most popular mouthpiece lines within the professional and serious-amateur clarinet commu-nities. It is currently being played in a most of the major orchestras around the world, including the Philadelphia Or-chestra, Metropolitan Opera, San Fran-cisco Symphony, Nagoya Symphony, To-kyo Metropolitan, and Orchestra della

Svizzera Italiana, as well as by jazz and commercial players such as Eddie Dan-iels.

Newly expanded, the line now includes 13 B♭, two E♭, and two Bass Clarinet mouthpieces, with the most recent edi-tions including Artist models for Eddie Daniels (one model for classical and one model for jazz) and London Silas Shavers.

BMS says they’re putting the final touches on an in-house mouthpiece proj-ect that has been years in the making, de-signed to enter the “affordable” mouth-piece market. Made from a solid billet of a special material and machined on the company’s 9-axis CNC, the mouthpiece will combine legendary Backun playabil-ity with an attractive price.www.backunmusical.com

SaxZSaxz Inc., a Japanese saxophone mouth-piece manufacturer, was founded by Mitsu Watanabe in 1999. In 2004, the company was incorporated as its business expanded. Currently headed by Toshi Kamakura, the company continues to develop and manufacture high-quality sax mouthpieces and accessories, sell saxophones, and repair mouthpieces and instruments.

The company recently introduced its original sterling silver model, using top quality materials. In 2008, under contract with Sony Music Artists, they produced the signature mouthpiece for Takeshi Ito, the sax player for T-Square, a Japanese jazz fusion band. In 2011, SaxZ signed a contract with

legendary alto player David Sanborn and re-leased the David Sanborn Signature Model mouthpiec-es in three different versions: sterling silver, metal, and HR type. Working closely with David Sandborn, Mitsu Watanabe, the founder and now direc-tor of SaxZ, spent two and half years developing this model. Made of 100

percent Sterling Silver, the sound of this mouth-piece is designed to be pure and rich, harmoniously blending gorgeous tone and dynamic blast.

Other models from SaxZ include Empire Sterling Silver, Empire Metal, NYC New York Series HR type, and Vintage1950 Series HR Type mouth-pieces (there are over ten different types in all). They have also produced saxo-phones, ligatures, caps and saxophone mutes. All products are handcrafted in Japan with materials 100 percent pro-cured in Japan.www.saxz.net


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DrakeDrake makes their mouthpieces by hand in Plainfield, N.J. and equips each with a lifetime warranty, offering a number of popular lines for saxophone and clarinet (including clarinet barrels). Favorites in-clude the Ceramic Chamber line, which

is constructed with an ac-tual ceramic interior that the company says works to give play-ers a better sense of con-trol and vi-brato, as well as enabling a brassier tone from the horns. They also offer liga-tures such as

the Vintage Resin Double Rail and the Quad Point Ceramic Resonance Plate, the latter of which includes a ceramic plate touching the reed in four places.

Recently, Drake has introduced sev-eral models in its Master Series line of mouthpieces, designed in collaboration with renowned artists. Products in this line included the David Liebman sopra-no mouthpiece, the Jerry Bergonzi tenor mouthpiece, and the Peter Christlieb tenor mouthpiece. The Liebman model is designed for the widest range of expres-sion possible, while the Bergonzi model is based on the master’s personal EB from the ‘60s. The classic “crescent” shaped baffle transitions to a recalibrated floor contour and ultimately a round large chamber. Additional banding on the shank helps to focus the core vibrational frequencies and increase projection. The Christlieb model is based on the “Bullet Chamber” design utilized by Christlieb for over 50 years. Its baffle is contoured to create an “aliveness” in the sound that is even through all registers, while also including additional long banding on the shank. www.drakemouthpieces.com

Bobby DukoffThe esteemed Bobby Dukoff mouthpiece company was started in the 1940s, when the late Bobby Dukoff began repairing broken mouthpieces and, subsequently, started designing his own. He created

mouthpieces in the ‘40s that changed the conven-tional tone of the mouth-piece chamber and per-formed experiments with hard rubber, plexiglass, and metals. Early cre-ations are collector pieces. Dukoff also found work as an audio engineer at RCA, but his legacy lives on through Bobby Dukoff Mouthpieces.

Current models are available for tenor, so-prano, alto, and baritone saxophone, including the D chamber (designed for a cutting sound made for solo and lead playing) and the M chamber (designed for a pronounced but wid-er projection, making it ideal for blending).

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For every stage of your musical journey.

To learn more about Antigua please visit www.antiguawinds.com or contact us at [email protected]


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Blow BlowbyReeds & Mouthpieces

Survey

Reeds and mouthpieces are, of

course, essential (and repeat)

purchases for players of any age

and ability level. With the re-

cent, and ongoing, emergence

of new materials and manufac-

turing techniques in this area,

both retailers and end-users to-

day have a greater variety of op-

tions – from a seemingly endless-

ly growing number of suppliers,

as well – than ever before.

MMR recently polled over

250 MI outlets to find out about

trends in reeds & mouthpiece

sales, and what challenges and

concerns stores and consumers

must wrestle with in the cur-

rent economic climate…

Compared to this time last year, sales of reeds & mouthpieces are…

Up: 33%

Level: 50%

Down: 17%

“Usually band instrument rentals, sales, and lessons come to a halt in the ear-ly summer season. Band camps are pretty much starting right after school lets out for summer break. That has helped us a lot.”

Bobby Brandolino Brandolino’s Encore Music Center

Shorewood, Ill.

“Student Level Business is up, but Pro is down due to online purchases from end users.”

Keith GrassoIsland Music Company

LaPlata, Md.

“Reeds are doing OK, but step-up mouthpieces are down.”

Del SarletteSarlette’s MusicMorris, Minn.

What price points are doing best?

If “yes,” are these types of reeds catching on with consumers?

Low: 52%

Yes: 16%

Intermediate: 26%

Moderately: 40%

High-end: 22%

No: 44%

Do you carry synthetic reeds?

Yes: 77%

No: 23%

“There are still the dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists, but a number of teachers and doublers are using them in place of cane reeds. They are perfect when they

Survey.indd 72 8/16/12 1:47 PM


What trends have you been noticing with respect to reeds & mouthpieces?

“More brands, more choice, more confusion.”

Dave St. JohnGard’s Music

Glendora, Calif.

“A better new mouthpiece is always an alternative for someone who can’t af-ford to upgrade an instrument. This is more profound right now.”

Drew ParkerSepark Music

Lewisville, N.C.

“The least expensive wins in this economy. Only serious musicians and professionals are concerned about brand and quality.”

Warren BaxterFirst Note MusicCape Coral, Fla.

“Retail stores ‘give them away.’ I can’t make any money on them, especially the intermediate to high-end mouthpieces.”

Steve SubjectSouth Beach Music

Miller Place, N.Y.

“Standard existing brands have al-ways been consistent sellers. Newer cus-tom-made mouthpieces are beginning to

If dealing with local school districts, do music programs…

Yes: 70%

No: 30%

Buy reeds and/or mouthpieces in bulk:

need something to work right away.”Dan Gilgenbach

Mike’s Music and SoundFond u Lac, Wis.

“It is difficult to get people to try syn-thetic reeds primarily because of the cost. We sell very few synthetic reeds, but the people who like them really love them. They are more popular for tenor and bari sax and bass clarinet than for alto sax and soprano clarinet.”

Rudy TichyTwin Village Music

Lancaster, N.Y.

“[A synthetic reed] avoids the hassles of bad reeds and also avoids having to have a huge inventory just laying around collecting dust... I’ve trained my custom-ers to appreciate them!!”

Bob SaccenteHumm’n Horns

Orlando, Fla.

“People complain about the cost, even though [synthetic reeds] last longer.”

Bobby BrandolinoBrandolino’s Encore Music Center

Shorewood, Ill.

20%

80%Leave it to individuals to purchase:

“I would have answered ‘both’ to this question, if I could. Most teachers keep a small stock of reeds on hand for emergen-cies or for students to purchase, but they mainly expect students to have their own supply.”

Becky HammerBrass Bell Music Store

Glendale, Wis.

“School directors will purchase reeds for emergencies and mouthpieces for school instruments. They require stu-dents to maintain their supplies.”

Jim LaseUniversal Music Co.

Thornton, Colo.

“Few schools still purchase in bulk as back-up reeds for concerts or trips. The majority of the time, students are on their own to purchase reeds at a local music store.”

Stew BlattWillis Music

Florence, Ky.

Do you have a particular staff member who’s an in-house “expert” on these types of products?

sell better due to the quality of hand fac-ing. One new brand of reed could take off due to the quality and price. Existing, high dollar brands are selling well due to quality.”

Timothy GlesmannSax Alley

Windsor, Colo.

“[We have been experiencing] bet-ter brass mouthpiece sales at all price and quality levels. High-end woodwind mouthpieces have become a tougher sell.”

John MyersRettig Music

Westlake, Ohio

“The search continues for a good quality reed that we can sell for a profit!”

Greg WeastColumbia River Music, Inc.

The Dalles, Ore.

Survey.indd 73 8/16/12 1:47 PM

www.rovnerproducts.com


Anniversary

Named “Grossman Brothers Music,” the operation grew as a wholesale busi-ness, while at the same time dabbling in manufacturing their own products – Trophy Flutophones in the ‘40s, Rogers Drums in the ‘50s. Eventually, as a new generation came to power, the company did away with its wholesale business al-together, changing the official name to the Grover Music Company and focus-ing efforts on a diverse suite of musical instrument brands they continue to de-velop to this day. Along with Grover and Trophy, the company now manufactures a variety of products under the banners of the Clevelander Drum Company, 1st Note Quality Musical Products, and On the Wall Productions, with international exposure. It’s that gradual shift to manu-facturing that Grover’s president, Rich-ard Berger, counts as the core ideal of

the company’s growth. “It was the right decision for us,” he says. “Ever since we made the change for good, we were able to go on with our thoughts and our dreams.”

Berger grew up with the company. He started with a summer job in the warehouse in 1967, then came on board in 1972 as a traveling agent for the wholesaling end of the business. Soon after, he began working on the Grover/Trophy manufac-turing end. His grandmother was the sis-ter of Henry and Julius Grossman, and his grandfather, Max, worked intricately with company early on with the sales department. His father, Joe, worked for

Grover Music The Cleveland manufacturer looks back on generations of experience in product development and wholesaling, from machine heads and timpani beaters to Flutophones and toy pianos.

Give any company 90 years in action and they’re bound to get involved

with a variety of operations. The story of Grover Music is a particular-

ly interesting tale of evolution and adaptation. The Cleveland-based

operation began as a wholesale company in 1922 started by Henry and

Julius Grossman.

90 Yearsat

Grover.indd 74 8/16/12 1:48 PM


the company on the road and later be-gan to help build up Grover and Trophy connections with other wholesalers and OEM customers.

Berger continued learned a lot about the company well into his tenure at the company. It was early on the company’s history that they began to experiment with manufacturing with plastics, begin-ning in the ‘40s. “We started doing some manufacturing in addition to the whole-saling,” Berger says. “One of those items we were making was the Flutophone. A company called Trophy Plastics was molding it for us. From what I can see, we bought the company and just started a company called ‘Trophy Music Com-pany.’” Grossman’s purchase of Grover followed in the ‘50s. Meanwhile, com-pany continued to distribute a full line of musical products. Berger says that, for a time, Grossman was one of the largest sheet music distributors in the world.

In 1952, the company bought Rogers Drums, which was at that time a family business based in New York and New Jersey. “Rogers was moved from there to Covington, Ohio,” says Berger. “That was built into a nice business and eventu-ally sold to CBS in 1966. Joe Thompson was a major force behind Rogers. He and Henry met somehow and really hit it off. Joe was the engineer who really had all the ideas. Henry was the marketing and sales guy. Joe just took that Rogers drum and came up with invention and innova-tion, just one after another.”

The satisfaction of developing that full line of manufactured goods into a successful entity of its own would rever-berate through the company for decades, slowly helping to change its priorities. “From everything I’d been told and from the time I spent here, it was more the fun of taking it from basically nothing

to building it up into the company it be-came – watching it become a worldwide name,” says Berger. “That was a lot of fun through all the years of developing and meeting all the Buddy Riches and Louie Belsons.”

As the company took to building up its Grover and Trophy lines, they began to notice that a lot of the customers for the products they were manufacturing were other wholesalers – they were es-sentially selling to their competitors. By the mid-‘80s, it was becoming apparent that they were going to have to focus on one direction. It helped that Berger al-ways found himself more interested in manufacturing. “In the mid-80s, when I got the reins with a couple of other guys who’d been helping us build this up, it was an opportunity for us to make that decision. It turned out to be a good de-cision for us. Dann Skutt, our Executive VP, has been with the company for over

40 years and has been an integral part of our growth under that change.”

The market has changed in a few ways. Berger says that Grover notices that particularly with its machine heads, whose demand has risen in both Asia and Europe, where guitar manufacturing has grown steadily with foreign brands and with domestic brands moving operations overseas.

“When the economy’s great and man-ufacturing is going full-force, we’re going to do more on the OEM part,” says Berg-er. “When the economy is not so great, we find that our distributing picks up be-cause people are more apt to repair exist-ing guitars. It’s a nice niche to be in.”

“Henry Grossman’s big thing was that instrument sales themselves might go up and down, but the accessory busi-ness is always nice and steady.”

On that note, an interesting facet of

“ Henry Grossman’s big thing was that instrument sales themselves might go up and down, but the accessory business is always nice and steady.”

Richard Berger

Joe Berger

Henry Grossman



the company has been its forays into the toy business, which has been receptive to some of the company’s products, sold under the “1st Note” brand, headed up by Skutt “It’s gotten us into another area where some of the products might have more sales potential in the toy in-

dustry than the music industry,” says Berger. “It really got started by the plastic novelty items that we were already doing forever. As the music stores began to get more sophisticated – those were items that they didn’t necessarily want to bother with, but we knew they were good items and it’s a natural thing to go to the toy in-dustry and do it there.”

And yet, the line of products from Grover and Trophy continue to play an important role in the music industry. The slide whistle, the fife, the Flutophone – all of these

enjoy a very solid place in any concept of music merchandise. It’s been the company’s ability to expand upon those products, maintain and accommodate new markets with its Grover line of ma-chine heads, and its overall willingness

to adapt that Berger counts as the com-pany’s finest achievement.

“The greatest accomplishment was a lot of hard work and taking the bull by the horns and really being able to look back and see the fruits of our efforts.”

Berger says the Grover tradition will be carried on by his son Cory Berger, the fourth generation to run the company.

The company’s headquarters in Cleveland.


www.tuners.com


AcousticsFirst Speaker Isola-tion StandsThese speaker isolation stands are said to make a perfect complement to Phase FOAM and ToneTiles products.

Just as both kits allow users to modify the acoustical mate-rial to tune a room, these speaker isolation stands provide two set up options, short or tall. These stands will instantly improve the focus and clarity of sound from speakers or studio monitors. Each ISO-L8R155 box ships with all the parts to create a short or long stand. For use in critical listening environments, these speaker stands work in recording studios, home listening, mastering suites, broadcast facilities, desktop gaming, and more. Retail price: $99.00.www.acousticsfirst.com

Galaxy Audio StandformerGalaxy Audio’s Standformer MST-C Se-ries Microphone Stands changes from a standard straight microphone stand to a fully adjustable boom stand in seconds with no additional parts or pieces required.

The MST-C series stands fold down with the boom arm neatly concealed within the center of the stand itself so the unit is ultra-compact to carry. The five-disk anti-slip cam gives the boom arm the ability to hold up to two pounds when fully extended.

This stand is built to last and offered in two versions: the MST-C60 that has a maximum height of 63” and the MST-C90 that has a maximum height of 93”. The MST-C Series even carries a three year factory warranty.www.galaxyaudio.com

Ampridge IJ-302 iJam CableThe Ampridge “iJam Cable” is designed to work with the iPhone®, iPod Touch®, and the iPad®. The custom passive cir-cuit inside the cable allows users to con-nect an instrument to mobile devices and listen through headphones. Unlike other adaptors, the IJ-302 uses no bat-tery power and has zero latency. Using available apps like GarageBand, the iJam Cable allows users to do things like record music, listen to effects loaded onto the device, or playback previously recorded songs. The cable consists of a plug to con-nect into your device, a jack to connect your headphones and a jack to plug your instrument cable into. Suggested Retail Price is $24.99.www.ampridge.com

D’Addario Zyex Strings New to the Zyex line is the Zyex Bass 4/4 Scale E String. Zyex strings work for a variety of musical styles, from bluegrass to jazz and even classical. Zyex strings maintain a warm, rich, gut-like tone

quality and is de-signed to remain stable in tuning even under extreme climate conditions. They feature robust pizzicato tone with a long, full sustain

and a quick, clear response. The Zyex Bass 4/4 Scale E String complements the standard 3/4 scale A, D and G strings and comes in medium and light tensions. Retail price: $262.25 (Helicon Cello), $22.00 (Helicon Violin), $108.25 (Zyex Bass).www.daddario.com

Denis Wick American Classic Trumpet MouthpieceThe American Classic mouth-pieces undergo an extended CNC machining process, result-ing in less polishing and metal removal after the initial cut.

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www.kurzweil.com


New Products

Available models are the 1.25C, 1.5C, 1.5CH, 3C, 5C, and 7C. The numbering system was designed to correspond with the standard American mouthpiece siz-ing established by Bach. Wick’s improved design includes a more comfortable rim and a unique throat and backbore design for each mouthpiece. www.deniswickusca.com

Ultimate Play-Along: Foo Fighters from AlfredUltimate Play Along: Foo Fighters provides premium recordings and note-for-note transcriptions of the chart-topping group. Two audio versions of every song are included in the CDs: an instrumental sound-alike recording and a version with-out the main instrument (bass, drum, or

guitar) so users can play along. In the Drum edition, three audio versions are provided on the included CDs: an instru-mental sound-alike recording, a version

without drums but with a constant click track, and a version without drums and without a click track.

In addition, the Tone ‘N’ Tempo (TNT) Changer included on the CDs give users a customized learning ex-perience, allowing users to easily loop sections for practice, slow tracks down or speed them up without changing the pitch, change the key. The CDs can also be played in a conventional CD player.

Drum-only charts are provided in the Drum book for convenience, along with a helpful drum notation key for reference. Retail price: $19.99www.alfred.com

Levy’s Chopper Design Guitar StrapsLevy’s new Chopper designed guitar straps (themed in classic biker styles) are made from a 2 1/2” wide strip of denim, which is printed, backed with denim, and finished with dis-tressed leather ends. Pictured is model M26DC, avail-able in six original designs.www.levysleathers.com

Audix f50Audix has expanded it’s f50 series by adding two models that are packaged with a professional quality low imped-ance XLR-XLR low impedance mic cable. Both models feature a cardi-oid polar pattern which helps to pro-vide vocal isolation for room noise and other sounds on stage. The du-


www.amatis.us


rable die cast zinc body and steel mesh grill ensure many years of durabil-ity. The f50S has the added feature of a noiseless on-off switch for additional user control on stage. The frequency re-sponse is contoured for vocal clarity and presence, which can provide a rich sound when coupled with slight bass proximity.

Retail price: $65 (f50), $75 (f50CBL, and f50s), $85 (f50SCBL). www.audix.com

Yamaha PSR-E433Yamaha’s new PSR-E433 offers many innovative features including basic tools for learning to play–like the Yamaha Portable Grand and Yamaha Education Suite (Y.E.S.) – and features for when it’s time to perform, like synthesizer Control

Knobs for real-time control of filter, ef-fects, and sound envelope. Powerful new Styles from different musical genres can be performed with 186 different patterns and 150 arpeggio Voices. Other features include PATTERN function to create

grooves, real-time Control knobs for in-stant effects, real-time pitch control with pitch bend wheel, 731 high quality voices including Super-realistic voices, a 6-track sequencer for recording 10 songs, a music database that includes 305 song titles.

Retail price: $429.

PRS Guitars P24 Limited EditionThe P24, PRS’s first 24-fret solidbody piezo-equipped guitar (based on the P22 model), comes standard with a maple 10-Top, mahogany back, 25” scale length Pattern-Regular mahoga-ny neck, Honduran rosewood fretboard

with mother of pearl “old school” bird inlays, hybrid hardware, a PRS piezo adjustable stoptail bridge,

and the redesigned PRS/LR Baggs piezo system. Only 50 instruments will be made in each of the five colors of-

fered: Black Gold Burst, Blue Crab Blue Burst, Eriza Verde Smoke-

burst, Fire Red Burst, and Vintage Smoke-burst.


www.kurzweil.com


New Products

While the acoustic tones created by the P24 are impressively natural, PRS’s highly-acclaimed 53/10 pickups provide very mu-sical electric tones as well. www.prsguitars.com/p24

HK Audio LUCAS Nano System Designed primarily for solo and acous-tic performers and presenters, LUCAS Nano’s self-contained 22lb package can be easily carried via built-in handles. It includes a dedicated subwoofer and built-in mixer, along with two small satellite speakers. The satellite speakers can be

mounted directly on top of the sub via HK’s Easy-Click connectors (requiring no ad-ditional wiring). The Easy-Click system allows users to also connect two satellites and use them as one double-powered, mono speaker. A stereo link connection en-ables users to pair two LU-CAS Nano systems together

for increased power, range, and inputs. The 3-channel mixer built into the

back of the sub easily accommodates mi-crophones, acoustic-electric and stereo instruments, plus media players. Retail price: $699.www.hkaudio.com

Meisel Accessories Chromatic MetrotunerThe Meisel COM-250 Metrotuner fea-tures a special clip designed to fit virtually any musical instrument, including a violin or viola body.

The COM-250 has many features: color display; ref-erence pitch adjustable from 410Hz to

490Hz; built-in mic or clip transducer; visual metronome, speed: 30-280 beats per minute; +/- 1 cent accuracy. The Meisel COM-250 weighs only 1.25 ounc-

es and is powered by one 2032 3V coin battery.www.meiselaccessories.com

American DJ Mega Go Bar50 and Mega Go Par64 Powered by a built-in rechargeable lithi-um battery, the Mega Go Bar50 and Mega Go Par64 will hold their charge and work reliably at full force for eight hours.

Equipped with 10mm LEDs, rat-ed at 50,000 hours, these two cordless units pro-duce a bril-liant output and intense RGB colors. The Mega Go Bar50 is a 2-foot (0.7 meter) linear lighting bar that contains 140 x 10mm LEDs (27 red, 60 green, 53 blue). The Mega Go Par64 is a Par 64-style fixture with 176 x 10mm LEDs (58 red, 60 green, 58 blue).

Tilting a grand piano has never been easier using the new Moondog Grand Piano Tilter.

www.moondogmfg.com

Moondog Manufacturing

425-252-07572915 Pine Street • Everett, WA 98201

To view a demonstrational video of the tilter visit

our website: www.moondogmfg.com

For more information including pricing [email protected]

If you’ve ever needed to tilt a grand piano from or to a skidboard by

yourself, the Moondog Grand Piano Tilter is the tool for you!


www.chateauusamusic.com

www.moondogmfg.com


Both fixtures include smooth RGB color mixing (fast or slow color change operation), 32 built-in color macros, an LED pulse and strobe effect, 0-100% electronic dimming, and flicker-free op-eration. To add to their go-anywhere convenience, both units come with an ADJ LED RC remote controller.

Designed to accommodate a variety of applications, the Mega Go Bar50 and Mega Go Par64 can be run in five op-erational modes, and are linkable in mul-tiples via 3-pin XLR cable, and feature IEC AC Power In/Out on the rear to daisy chain power for up to 25 Mega Go Bar50s and 30 Mega Go Par64s. Retail price: $199.99.www.americandj.com

Red Label Pearl from Super-SensitiveSuper-Sensitive Musical String Compa-ny’s Red Label Pearl is a nylon core string designed for students with advanced bow speed, bow weight, and point-of-contact techniques. Pearl’s nylon core is made up of multiple independent strands of fiber. The result is a core that is said to be warm, broad and full. Additionally,

Pearl’s nylon core is anchored with copper eyelets that increase tone dymamics, creat-ing more centered midrange tones. The composition

of Pearl’s wound strings are silver for the D & G strings and aluminum for the A string. This contemporary collection of windings creates an audibly balanced set. Each Pearl set includes an extra “E” string. Pearl is available for violin only and in 1/16, 1/8, ¼, ½, ¾ and 4/4 sizes. Retail price: $51.05.www.supersensitive.com

Mapex Limited Edition “Raven” Meridian Black KitThis specially designed and limited edi-tion drum kit will be available exclu-sively through authorized Mapex dealers worldwide. The rich Birch/Maple shells crank out low and dark tones with a bal-anced attack. The inside of the shells feature a new Black finish that enhances

resonance and projection. The 22”x20” Bass drum delivers low end and the shallow toms speak fast. The kit boasts one 12”x08” rack tom, and 14”x12” and 16”x14” floor toms. A 14”x06” snare drum com-pletes the set.

The shells come wrapped in a semi-gloss black wood grain finish, fitted with satin black hardware, and are topped with Remo clear pinstripe drum-heads. An additional 10”x07” add-on tom is also available. Retail price: $1,309.

www.mapexdrums.com

Often Imitated, Never Duplicated!Accept only Authentic, Certified Floyd Rose Tremolos and Parts.

Floyd Rose is a Division of AP International. For more info, call 732-919-6200 or visit www.apintl.com or www.floydrose.com

To become a certified dealer call: 732-919-6200

email: [email protected]

What’s new:- Floyd Rose Titanium Tremolo, - All New 8-string Tremolo, - “Low Profile” Pro 6 & 7 string Tremolos, - Upgradable Tungsten and Brass blocks, - Certified Replacement Parts, - Floyd Rose Custom Shoppe


www.floydrose.com


New Products

Schaller Da Vinci Tuning MachineFeaturing a new surface, Da Vinci provides the delicate fine tuning normally associat-ed with enclosed greased machine heads.

A transparent cover plate is made of a specially developed scratch-proof poly-carbonate. Resistant to UV light and

extreme temper-ature changes, this polycarbon-ate is also imper-vious to chemical cleaning agents.

Like other Schaller guitar machines, Da Vinci models are available in sets of six a side, 3 + 3, 4 + 2, or any other combina-tion. A choice of finishes and buttons al-lows customization to match any instru-ment. On-Stage Distribution is currently stocking the most popular combinations. Custom combinations are available via special order. www.onstagestands.com

Vandoren Hygro Reed CasesThe new Hygro Reed Cases are com-pact enough to fit in an instrument case and include a humidity control system to offer advanced per-formance. Each reed case offers space for six reeds, a sponge to maintain optimal humidity, and a disc that indi-cates when it is time to add water.

There are two models: the HRC10 which holds clarinet or alto sax reeds and the HRC20 which holds bass clarinet or tenor or baritone sax reeds.

Retail: $57.99www.vandoren.com

Tech 21’s Boost RVB Update Tech 21 has updated their Boost RVB analog reverb emulator pedal, changing the former Rumble control to Modula-tion. This gently modulates the pre-delay

of the reverb for additional dimensionali-ty. The Boost RVB features a clean Boost function for up to 9dB of added volume. This circuitry intentionally models the inherent imper-fections of vintage units.

A single, continuously-variable Time control pro-vides a full sweep of size from short to long. Mix (ranging from 100% dry to 100% wet), Feedback, Tone and Level controls are 100% analog for authentic, organic sounds. When switching into bypass mode, the Trails function allows the reverb signal to decay naturally, rather than stopping abruptly.

Retail price: $245.www.tech21nyc.com

SKB Rolls 22” Roto-X Cymbal VaultThe new 1SKB-CV22W, Roto-X 22” Cymbal Vault is roto molded of Linier

the Straight Truth About Pickups by Jason Lollar

Lollar Pickups PO Box 2450 Vashon Island, WA 98070 (206) 463-9838 www.lollarguitars.com

This was more like the dragon chasing us –over the years it’s been one of our most requested pickup designs. Of course, we had to add our own twists, including sizing it to drop into a standard humbucker route. A2 magnets, cus-tom covers, lot’s of attitude.

Starting with a ‘60s Country Gentleman as a benchmark, we went after the classic rock-a-billy ‘bucker tone, adding some “Lollar” along the way. The neck pickup is warm and buttery, with a clear, present top end. The bridge pickup is fat and honky, with a rich, defined low end. Combined, they sparkle and spank with clarity and punch. They’ll cover ev-erything from “OZ” rock to “Nashville Super Pickers” to “Hot Rods and Hot Babes…” Go Man, Go!

I’ve personally designed over a hundred different pickup models, including most of the vintage classics, some obscure works of art from steel guitars to clavinets, and even a few of my own designs that have never existed in the past.

I invite you to visit our website for sound clips, videos and current product information or feel free to give us a call.


www.lollarguitars.com


Low Polyethylene with a welded center post that will hold as many as eight cym-bals that are up to 22 inches in diameter. The vault is designed with a molded-in ergonomic carrying handle, in-line skate style wheels, and an extra strong pull-out handle.

The new 1SKB-CV22W 22” Roll-ing Cymbal Vault includes four cym-

bal pads to cushion and protect the cymbals. Molded with SKB’s

“X” pattern, the new 22” cymbal vault

will stack with the SKB-Roto-X Drum Cases and features a

sturdy, high-ten-sion slide release buckle with heavy-du-ty web straps for easy closure. Backed with the SKB’s Million Mile Lifetime Guarantee. Retail price: $144.99. www.skbcases.com

ModTone Effects High GainerThe High Gainer uses the same aircraft quality jacks and switch and Die-Cast case construction that ModTone fans

have become accustomed to. A dual concentric tone knob setup gives users classic distortion tones as well as over-the-top, mid-scooped metal tones, while the separate level and gain controls allow users to cus-

tomize the overall tonal experience. A true bypass channel is included, along with a 9-volt battery. The pedal can be run on external power. A 5-year warran-ty is also included. Retail price: $89.95. www.modtone-effects.com

Kawai Flagship CA ModelsThe new Kawai CA65 and CA95 mod-els replace the company’s previous CA instruments. The top of the line Concert Artist models feature an all new tone generator (TG) that has significantly more processing power than previous TGs, allowing for many tech-nical improve-ments in these instruments. For instance, the

CA65/95 fea-ture 256 notes of polyphony and improved digital to analog audio conversion. The new TG also allows for greatly enhanced and expanded reverbs and effects. Other technical improvements include the new

Harmonic Imaging XL sound technol-ogy and the new Grand Feel (GF) action. This action features extra-long wooden keys with a key front pivot length the same as Kawai grand pianos.

Also of note is the CA95, which boasts an improved version of Kawai’s exclu-sive Soundboard Speaker System. This unique system uses a real wooden sound-

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HUNTERNEW YORK

Provide your customers with the highest quality instruments and the best possible price points. Hunter offers a full line of instruments that are made to the best standards. Call us today to find out how you can profit from Hunter Musical

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New Products

board with ribs to create an authentic, organic piano experience. www.kawaius.com

CAD Audio UHF WX100 Series WirelessThe UHF WX100 wireless system offers simple operation along with reliable wire-less connectivity in congested RF environ-

ments, along with high audio bandwidth. The WX100 fea-tures a familiar control scheme that facilitates operation by non-professional users.

Basic system components include the WX160 goose-neck desk stand transmitter and WX100 receiver, the handheld WX150 micro-

phone and the WX155 body pack which can be used with the CAD 301 cardioid lavalier mic or CAD 302 headworn microphone for additional flexibility. The WX100 is sup-plied with a joining plate and

rack ears for easy installation. Retail price: $338 (WX100A), $278 (WX150A, WX155A), $398 (WX160A).www.cadaudio.com

Sony DWZ Wireless Systems from Shoreview DistributionThe new 2.4 GHz DWZ series in-cludes combinations of hand-held mics, bodypack transmitters and rack-mount or compact size receivers. The new packages feature a con-temporary look highlighted by a yellow band on each of the products as a unique identifying feature. The DWZ Series includes: DWZ-B30GB Digital Wireless Package-Guitar Set, DWZ-B70HL Digital Wireless Package-Headset and Lavalier Set, DWZ-M50 Digital Wireless Package-Vocal Set and DWZ-M70 Digital Wireless Package-Vo-cal/Speech Set.

Available soon from Shoreview Dis-tribution.www.shoreviewdistribution.com

Godlyke HAO Bass Liner The Godlyke Bass Liner’s simple-yet-ef-fective user interface invites precise tone-tweaking at home, on stage, or in the stu-dio. Features include a circuit designed by legendary audio engineer Phil Jones of Phil Jones Bass, Level Control with +10 dB of signal boost, Input Gain Control, Red Clipping Indica-tor LED, Hi-Fidelity, wide-dynamic range 5-band EQ with +/- 18 dB at 50 Hz, 160 Hz, 630 Hz, 2.5 kHz, and 12 kHz, and 9-volt Battery or AC adaptor power options.

An optional 18-volt operation im-proves dynamic range and headroom. A secondary Direct Output jack enables us-ers to connect to tuner or other external device. Retail price: $399.www.godlyke.com

Cremona bowed instruments have set the pacefor the vibrant student and rental markets for over30 years. Strict adherence to international sizingrequirements, domestic educational set-up standardsand continuous quality improvement have madeCremona Violins, Violas, Basses and Cellos provensales leaders.

Our best-selling, ebony fitted SV-175 CremonaPremier Violin Outfit has recently been upgradedto include the J.LaSalle LB-13 Octagonal Bow andthe TL-33 deluxe rectangular Travelite case.

Meeting the Needs of Studentsfor More Than 30 Years ...

Our Best-Selling SV-175 Cremona Violin!

SV-175

[800] BUY-SAGAwww.sagamusic.comDealer inquiries invited.

•All-solid carved, graduated construction

•Seven sizes from 4⁄4 to 1⁄16

•Long lasting ebony fittings

•Finetuner tailpiece for precise, easytuning

•Rugged TL-33 Travelite case

•Well-balanced J.LaSalle LB-13 bow with ebony frog

Cremona SV-175 Violin Outfit:

$249Suggested Retail


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Voyage-Air Along for the Ride to Mt. KilimanjaroNoted Las Vegas musician Robby LeBlanc recently brought along a Voyage-Air gui-tar to the top of Mount Kimimanjaro, the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, to celebrate a 100-pound weight loss. The trip was funded by sponsors and helped by

widespread ex-posure through venues like the Oprah Winfrey Network.

LeBlanc says he chose the Voyage-Air for its weight and

portability. Along with his climbing crew, LeBlanc faced torrential rains and a dif-ficult “acclimation climb,” along with a mudslide that left him clinging for life, dan-gling over the edge of a 100-foot precipice.

LeBlanc said, “The guitar endured temperatures from steamy jungle tropics, down to 20 below zero.

When Robby conquered the summit of Kilimanjaro, he pulled out his Voyage-Air guitar and played a few of his favorite tunes, including a rendition of “Amazing Grace“ in a personal prayer of thanks for his safe passage.

The guitar that Robby carried was a Voyage-Air VAOM-02, an OM-sized acoustic guitar that is from Voyage-Air’s most-affordable Transit Series of guitars. www.voyageairguitar.com

Stone Sour’s Roy Mayorga En-dorses ProMarkProMark recently announced the signing of Roy Mayorga, drummer for the hard rock band Stone Sour, to its roster of en-dorsing artists. Mayorga has had a storied career, playing in some of the most influ-ential bands in punk, metal and rock, in-cluding NYC crust punk band Nausea, metal band Crisis, and hardcore band Shelter, and Bra-zilian metal band Soulfly.

In 2006, May-orga joined Stone Sour and recorded the album Come What(ever) May, which went gold and featured the hit single, “Through Glass.” Before heading out on tour with Stone Sour, Mayorga hit the road with Sepultura for a series of European dates.

Mayorga plays ProMark Hickory 419 Wood Tip Sticks and says, “I love Pro-Mark drumsticks for their resilience and responsiveness,” says Mayorga. “Pro-Mark never lets me down, whether I’m in the studio or onstage.” www.promark.com

Teton Guitars Teams with Slash to Raise Funds for Wild RhinosAn STG100NT Teton Guitar, signed by musician Slash and donated by Chesbro Music Company, was auctioned off at the Los Angeles chapter of the Ameri-can Association of Zookeepers (AAZK) annual Bowling for Rhinos event in Los Angeles this past May. The collabora-tive effort was made to raise funds for conservation projects that conserve all five remaining species of Rhino and their habitats.

Supplier Scene

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www.shubb.com

www.rodgersinstruments.com


Supplier Scene

The sold out event raised more than $30,000 for rhinoceros conservation. Bowl-ing for Rhinos events like this have generat-ed millions of dollars that directly support efforts in Africa and Southeast Asia to save the ecosystems that support rhinos and the many other species that share their habitat.

The Teton Guitars brand is owned by Chesbro Music Com-pany which was founded in 1911 to pro-vide local stu-dents with ac-cess to music education. A century later,

Chesbro still has an active hand in the educational community as well as exist-ing as a major national wholesale dis-tributor of print music and instruments, which includes Teton Guitars.tetonguitars.com

Black Widow Drum Web™ Named Official Drum Mat Of PASIC 2012Pahu International recently announced that the drummer-designed Black Widow Drum Web accessory has been named “The Official Drum Mat Of PASIC 2012”. The mat will be in use at every drumset-related seminar during the Percussive Arts Society’s 3-day International Conference and on display at the Black Widow booth #126.

The innovative Black Widow employs super-gripping Velcro™ on the polyester mat and drum pedals—allowing it to be strong enough to prevent drumset crawl under virtually any playing conditions yet small enough to fold eas-ily into its 12˝x15˝ storage bag. Now in it’s 37th year, PASIC is the largest gathering

of drummers and percussionists in the world. The 2012 convention runs from October 31 through November 3 in Aus-tin, Texas.www.pahuinternational.com

American Recorder Tech Now Handling Liverpool Drum-stricks US DistroAmerican Recorder Technologies, Inc., recently announced that it is now the US distributor for Brazilian manufactured

Liverpool Drumsticks. Liverpool manu-factures a wide selection of drumsticks from environmentally friendly, sustain-able Brazilian grown hardwoods such as Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry Wood), Marfim

BUNDY PARTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR ALL REPAIRS.

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(Brazilian Ivory Wood), Abiurana (Brazil-ian Maple Wood) and the famous Roxinho (Brazilian Purple Heart Wood). Brazilian hardwoods are more-dense than sticks made from US Hickory wood and offer a more solid impact, control and balance. Sticks are sold in accurate matched sets, offering equal stick performance and tone. Liverpool also manufactures a large selec-tion of hand-held percussion instruments including shakers, triangles, go go bells, tambourines, chims, wood blocks and ca-basas as well as a variety of percussion ac-cessories.www.baquetasliverpool.com.br Rovner Unveils Redesigned WebsiteRovner Products recently announced the launch of their re-designed website. De-tailed product descriptions now make it much easier to decide between the eight Rovner ligature models. Updated refer-

ence guides and expanded company in-formation will provide everything else you need to know about ligature selec-tion and more. Already much easier to navigate, the website promises even more useful features and additional resources when Phase II of the redesign gets under-way. www.rovnerproducts.com

EMG & ESP Invade Metallica’s Orion FestivalEMG pickups and ESP Guitars joined forces at the Orion Music & More Festival this summer in Atlantic City to host the “ESP Guitar Experience”, an opportunity

for attendees to get an up close and personal look at the instruments and electronics that power Metallica. Scott Wunschel, EMG’s Na-tional Sales Manager said, “Not only do we get to connect with fans of EMG and ESP, but we get to show off some new gear and give folks a

chance to plug into the same rigs that their favorite rockstars use.

With each days attendance at 35,000 or more the booth had a constant line of concert goers checking out guitars and

talking gear. Each day there were mul-tiple drawings for SWAG bags filled with EMG and ESP gear along with a grand prize drawing for an ESP EC-401 guitar on the final day of the festival.www.emgpickups.com and www.espguitars.com

Radnich Signs as PionoDisc Recording ArtistPianist and composer Radnich has de-servedly been heralded as “the force that is making the classical piano cool again.” Radnich, who is also a Mason & Hamlin

artist, was recently featured with Piano-Disc on NBC’s To-day Show and visi-tors to Disneyland’s Tomorrowland can see him perform “live” on a player piano 3,000 times a day. Radnich’s fresh

compositions and orchestrations have been performed by him at Lincoln Center, the Annenberg Theatre, and the Music Cen-ter at Strathmore.


www.kysermusical.com


Supplier Scene

The signing of Radnich as a recording artist is part of PianoDisc’s continuing expansion of its music library to include the best in new modern acoustic piano talent, including Billboard’s #1 R&B art-ist Brian Culbertson and contemporary jazz artist, five-time Grammy nominee David Benoit. PianoDisc exclusively brings this outstanding music to life on pianos in homes, schools, and businesses around the globe.www.pianodisc.com

McManus Endorses Fret-King and VintagePat McManus, best known for his asso-ciation with Irish heavy rock group Ma-ma’s Boys, began endorsing Fret-King and Vintage recently.

After trying a few models out, Pat set-tled on the Vintage ReIssued V100AFD Paradise and the Fret-King Green La-bel Corona 80, with its vintage-voiced humbuckers and designer Trev Wilkin-

son’s legend-ary Vari-coil control – which allows the play-er to roll the guitar’s pick-ups from thick humbuckers all the way down to biting single coils, and any-where in-between.

In 1997, with brother John under the name Celtus, McManus released the Moonchild album and toured with Sheryl Crow. That year, Celtus beat off competition from U2, The Corrs and Enya to win the coveted Irish World Mu-sic Awards’ Best Album of the Year gong.

Pat has also worked as a session man, playing for John Parr, Tricky and Sa-mantha Fox, among others.www.fret-king.com and www.jhs.co.uk/vintageelectric

Légère Reeds Introduces New Classic Packaging In 2011, Légère Reeds’ Signature Series packaging won gold in both the North American Package competition and the Canadian Packaging Competition for best package. “Since its im-plementation we have seen a large increase in sales of our Signa-ture Series line due in part to the fact that the packaging now reflects the value of the reed in-side” says VP Sales Tim Elvy.

Riding on the success of its award-winning Signature Series packaging, Légère recently announced the release of its new packaging for the Classic Series reed family, with easily identifiable colors for both the Clarinet line (blue) and the Saxophone line (red).www.legerereeds.com

Select Your Manufacturer &Product From Thousands ListedOr Type In Your Length, Widthand Height

• Case for small or large "passport" type PA systems• Hybrid lightweight wood and nylon construction• Wheels and retractable handle• Removable internal divider for Yamaha style PA• Large external pocket & reinforced web handle Retractable Handle

For Easy Transport

Two Sizes To Fit Most Portable PA Systems Including Fender,Yamaha and Sampson

www.gatorcases.com

Your Passport To Easy Transporter


www.gatorcases.com


A Special Edition clarinet mouthpiece for the discriminating clarinetist.

“The Firebird”

The “Firebird” clarinet mouthpiece by LOMAX CLASSIC is a reincarnation of the legendary Chedeville pieces of the late 1920s and 1930s. We start with a pecision machined piece of vintage formula hard rubber which is then carefully hand crafted by master craftsman Michael A. Lomax. The “Firebird” truly has a glorious sounding voice which will soar above the largest orchestra or band. For more information contact us at mike @lomaxclassic.com

or call 1-417-865-0996. Dealer Inquiries Welcome!

Big Bang Distribution800-547-6401 • www.bigbangdist.com

Direct Music Supply800-828-1601 • www.directmusicsupply.com

Kelley Percussion954-581-1284 • www.kelleypercusion.com

www.cympad.com

Other companies make overdrives —

Here’s where they gotthe idea.

Maxon OD808 The ORIGINAL Overdrivewww.maxonfx.com

THE WORLD’S LARGEST ONLINEGUITAR PARTS DISTRIBUTOR

Providing the Music Industry Top Quality Replacement Parts Since 1978

WWW.WDBIZ.COM [email protected]: (800) 449-9348 Fax: (239) 543-5874

Easy online applications! Free ground shipping on orders $200!

Stock YOUR Shelves! BECOME A WD DEALER TODAY!


www.maxonfx.com

www.cympad.com

www.wdbiz.com

www.lomaxclassic.com

www.mmrmagazine.com

Accessories

MMR CLASSIFIEDS INFO: ☛ RATES: Classified Display: $30 per column inch for text only. $40 per column inch, 1 color, logo, graphics. $50 per column inch 4 color.

☛ PAYMENTS: ALL ADS ARE PREPAID. Charge on Mastercard, Visa or American Express.

☛ SEND YOUR ADVERTISEMENT TO: 21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494 [email protected].

☛ QUESTIONS? Call Steven Hemingway at 800-964-5150 x 34 [email protected].

Are You Tired of Trying to Climb the Corporate Ladder?

is a multi-store, family owned and operated full-line retailer based in Metro Atlanta. Ken Stanton Music

has over 60 years’ success and customer satisfaction.

Seeking: Certified Band/Orchestra Repair Techs, Print Music Manager, Store Managers,

Company-Wide Lesson Coordinator, and Sales Associates in the following

departments: Guitars, Pro Audio, Drums and Percussion, and Band/Orchestra.

Looking for friendly, customer service oriented, self-motivated, proven closers with good listening skills and 2+ years experience.

Availability for flexible scheduling a must. Bi-lingual a plus.

We feature: Competitive non-commission based pay, medical/ dental coverage, 401(k) plan, vacation/holiday/sick time,

and room for advancement.

Complete application online at: www.kenstantonmusic.com

By mail: Ken Stanton Music Attn: Scott Cameron, General Manager 119 Cobb Parkway North, Suite A Marietta, GA 30062 Via email: [email protected]

Business Opportunities

For Classified Sales Call Steven

800-964-5150 ext. 34 [email protected]

Classifieds



Classifieds September.indd 90 8/16/12 2:04 PM


For Classified Sales Call Steven

800-964-5150 ext. 34 [email protected]

• BandandOrchestraRentals• NewandLikeNewEducator-Approved BrandNameInstruments• PersonalizedRent-To-OwnProgram• NoFranchiseFeeorInventoryInvestment• NoShippingCosts• HighCommissionsPaidthe1stofEveryMonth•ExceptionalService





www.mmrmagazine.com

Help Wanted

CHUCK LEVIN’S WASHINGTON MUSIC CENTERwww.chucklevins.com

BAND & ORCHESTRAL INSTRUMENT SALESChuck Levin’s Washington Music Center, located in Wheaton, MD is

searching for an experienced & knowledgeable band and orchestral instrument sales professional. Join our team and become part of one of the largest and most successful music stores in the country. Qualified candidates must be highly motivated, energetic,

and possess excellent people skills. Musicians with two years sales experience preferred. Compensation based on salary plus commission for unlimited earning

potential. Excellent benefits including health, dental, life, and 401K. Email resume to [email protected] or fax to 301-946-0487. EOE V/D/M/F

Visit us at NAMM

Booth #818

Opportunity knocksOwner retiring after 40+ years.

Music store and building. Retail sales, repair shop, lessons and rental program.

Turn key potential. Located in South New Jersey suburbs

Contact Ron 609-458-6303

For Sale

FOR SALE:Over 250 Rental Return Orchestra Instruments

1/2 & 3/4 Violins; 13” & 14” Violas; 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 Cellos

Most are complete outfits.Entire Inventory to be Sold in One Lot.

For Information, Contact: [email protected]



www.mmrmagazine.com

Guitar Show OperatorsPromote your show dates

and reach every guitar dealer in the US through the classified pages of MMR.

Call Steven 800-964-5150 ext 34

Merchandise

Merchandise

UniTec “Road Tuff”NO –HUMP SOUSAPHONE CASES

EZ Roll and Stack DesignIndestructible Inter-Lok Construction

Also Available in ATA StyleThe Best Value in the Industry

1.800.782.3296

ACCORDIONS, CONCERTINAS, & BUTTON BOXES new, used, buy, sell, trade, repair, tune,

CASTIGLIONE DISTRIBUTING CO.13300 E 11 MILE WARREN, MI 48089

PH # 1-586-755-6050 WWW.CASTIGLIONEACCORDIONS.COM

Instruction

From button accordion to Piano accordion, from Kid’s to adult, from entry level to professional, from solid color to combo, we have a wide selection for the accordion player.

Hunter Music Instrument Inc adds in an accordion line.

www.huntermusical.com718-706-0828

FINANCING AVAILABLEYAM

AH

A–K

AW

AI

Japanese High Quality

GUARANTEED You get what you pay for!

1-800-782-2694North American Music

11 Holt DriveStony Point, NY 10980Fax: (845) 429-6920

CERTIFIED PRE-OWNED

PIANOS

Attn: PIANO DEALERS!We Want to Give You the Business!We can deliver quality prospects to you, whether your business is Local, National, or International.Piano World is the world’s most popular piano web site. We are where people searching for piano information land first. And we get more traffic in a month than other piano sites see in a year.

Invest your advertising dollars wisely, get the details at: www.PianoWorld.com/advertising

PianoWorld.com Home of the world famous Piano Forums



Repair Tools

www.mmrmagazine.com

Repair Tools

BOW REHAIRING

Expert Bow ServiceOrder forms,Pricing and Shipping label at:

www.bowrehairing.com

Violin bows as low as $10.00 per bow in quantity incl. shipping (see website fordetails.) Large inventory of replacement parts both new and vintage.

IRA B. KRAEMER & Co.Wholesale Services Division

“An industry leader since 1967”467 Grant Avenue, Scotch Plains, N.J. 07076

Tel: 908-322-4469 Fax: 908 322-8613 e mail: [email protected]

Sales Reps Wanted

Merchandise

Liberty Adjustable Clarinet Barrel

Precision manufactured from aerospace grade materials,

the Liberty Barrel allows you to be in tune under any playing conditions.

No more pulling at the joints or clumsy rings. Will save you time, money and frustration.

Adjustable in length from approximately 59mm to 69mm.

Band Director’s Top Pick

RSBerkeley.com | 1.800.974.3909 [email protected]

FAST TURN-AROUND ON STOCK REPAIRS NATIONWIDE

NAPBIRT member, 30 Years Experience

Contact: Dan Rieck, [email protected]

[email protected]

Task Machine, Inc.PO Box 463 • Clearwater, MN 55320

651-322-0829 [email protected]

Orange USA is hiring experienced Sales Reps.Please send resume to

[email protected]



SHIPPING YOUR PIANOwith Lone Wolf Trucking

is a “grand” idea! An independent, long-distance Mover

specializing in coast-to-coast residential Relocation.

1-800-982-9505www.lonewolftrucking.com

Alamogordo, New Mexico. 88310ICC MC-256289

Services

Services

Visit the Classifieds on the Web:

www.mmrmagazine.com

Vintage Instruments

WE BUY, SELL, TRADE and ship worldwide.

ONLINE APPRAISAL SERVICEGRUHN GUITARS,

400 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203

(615) 256-2033fax (615) 255-2021 www.guitars.com

Wanted USED TUBASANY CONDITION-CASH PAID

THE TUBA EXCHANGE1825 CHAPEL HILL RD.

DURHAM, NC 277071-800-869-8822

[email protected]

Wanted To Buy

Sales Reps Wanted Help Wanted

Authorized Area Representative Position Available

Candidates should possess the following skills:• Music industry experience• Ability to train and motivate

others• A proven track record of sales

accomplishments• Well-developed verbal and

written communication skills • Superior time management skills• Self-motivated• Overnight travel required• Computer literacy

Send resume and salary history to [email protected]

Perri’s Leathers is hiring U.S. sales reps, please send us your

resume and let us know what territory you cover. Perri’s offers a full line of

Guitar Straps and Guitar Picks all made in Canada.

Visit our website: www.perris.ca Please email your resume

or send inquiry’s to: [email protected]

or call 905-7618549 ext 100

US Educational Sales SpecialistSabian Ltd. is a family owned company with manufacturing and corporate offic-es located in Meductic, Canada. Sabian is a world leader in the music industry, selling cymbals and hand percussion instruments under the Sabian and Gon Bops trademarks.

We are currently seeking a sales profes-sional to concentrate on US Educational Sales. Reporting to the Director of Education, this position will be respon-sible for achieving strong growth in Educational Sales in the US, as well as oversee all aspects of marching percus-sion initiatives. Preference will be given to candidates who have proven success in sales and/or sales management.

Qualifications: • Minimum of 3 years of success-

ful sales experience in the music products industry

• Percussionist with significant marching percussion experience.

• Highly organized and self-moti-vated

• Ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment

• Well-developed interpersonal and communication skills

• Willing to act as an entrepreneur within a company setting

• Strong analytical skills • Experience with Microsoft Office

Suite of products.

We offer competitive compensation and benefits package and the oppor-tunity to work with a highly-regarded company in the music industry.Please submit resume prior to September 15, 2012 by email to [email protected] or by mail to the following address: Sabian Ltd. Attention: M. Hargrove219 Main StreetMeductic, NB E6H 2L5



Ad IndexCOMPANY NAME E-MAIL/WEB ADDRESS PAGE COMPANY NAME E-MAIL/WEB ADDRESS PAGE

AAl Cass 79

Allparts 8

Amati’s Fine Instruments www.Amatis.uscom 78

American Music and Sound www.hagstromguitars.com 39

American Way Marketing LLC www.americanwaymktg.com 66

Antigua Winds, Inc. www.antiguawinds.com 71

BBad Cat Amplifier Co., Inc. www.badcatamps.com 14

Band World Music Inc www.ChateauUSAMusic.com 80

Bechstein America LLC www.bechstein-america.com 29

Bechstein America LLC www.bechstein-america.com 31

CChord Buddy-Perry’s Music www.chord buddy.com 51

Cympad www.cympad.com 89

DD’Addario & Co. www.daddario.com 49

D’Addario & Co. www.daddario.com 9

Dean Markley Strings, Inc. www.deanmarkley.com

Dream Cymbals And Gongs www.dreamcymbals.com 42

EEmerald Reed Co. www.emeraldreed.com 69

Emerald Reed Co. www.emeraldreed.com 65

Evets Corp. www.daneelctro.com 5

FFishman Transducers, Inc. www.fishman.com 53

Floyd Rose Marketing www.floydrose.com 81

GGable Piano Service www.moondogmfg.com 80

Galaxy Audio www.galaxyaudio.com 34

Gator Cases www.gatorcases.com 88

Godlyke Inc. www.godlyke.com 89

HHailun USA www.hailun-pianos.com 37

Hal Leonard Corp. www.halleonard.com 7

House of Troy www.houseoftroy.com 34

Hunter Music Instrument Inc. www.huntermusical.com 83

J/KJody Jazz www.jodyjazz.com 24

K & S Music www.kandsmusic.com 24

Kawai America Corp. www.kawiausl.com cov2

Kurzweil Music Systems www.youngchang.com 79

Kurzweil Music Systems www.youngchang.com 77

Kyser Musical Products Inc. www.kysermusical.com 87

LLegere Reeds www.legere.com 67

Levy’s Leathers Ltd. www.levysleathers.com 55

Lollar Guitars www.lollarguitars.com 82

Lomax Classic www.lomaxclassic.com 89

Lowrey Organ Company www.lowrey.com 38

MMel Bay Publications Inc. www.melbay.com 15

Music & Arts Center www.musicarts.com 86

NNAMM www.namm.com 20-21

New Sensor Corp. www.newsensor.com 59

O/POnBoard Research Corp. www.tuners.com 76

Piano Disc www.pianodisc.com 35

Pick Punch www.pickpunch.com 45

RRemle Musical Products Inc. www.beechler.com 70

Rodgers Instruments Corporation www.rodgersinstruments.com 85

Roland Corp. U.S. www.rolandUS.com cov4

Rovner Products www.rovnerproducts.com 73

SSaga Musical Instruments www.sagamusic.com 84

Saga Musical Instruments www.sagamusic.com 25

Saga Musical Instruments www.sagamusic.com 68

Samson Technologies Corp. www.samsontech.com 3

Saxz Inc. www.saxzinc.com 45

Shoreview Distribution www.shoreviewdistribution.com 8

SHS International www.shsint.net 58

Shubb Capos www.shubb.com 85

SKB Corp. www.skbcases.com 19

TTheo Wanne Classic Mouthpieces www.theowanne.com 61

TKL Products Corp. www.tkl.com 1

Tycoon Percussion www.tycoonpercussion.com 60

U/VUnitec Products Corp. www.unitecproducts.comom 60

Universal Melody Services LLC www.universalmelody.com 24

Verne Q. Powell Flutes, Inc. www.powellflutes.com 13

W/YW.D. Music Products Inc. www.wdmusic.com www.wdbiz.com 89

West Music www.tjflutes.com 64

Wittner GmbH & Co. KG www.wittner-gmbh.de 36

Yamaha Corp. of America www.yamaha.com 11

Ad Index September.indd 96 8/16/12 4:37 PM

Save

The D

ate

!Networking the

jazz arts community... local to global!

Jazz Education Network

4th Annual Conference

The Jazz Education Networkis dedicated to building the jazz arts community by advancing education, promoting performance, and

developing new audiences.

For complete membership information/benefits please visit us at:

www.JazzEdNet.org

Atlanta, GeorgiaJanuary 2-5, 2013

MMRCOV3 COV3 8/16/12 10:22:41 AM

www.jazzednet.org

Roland’s SuperNATURAL® Piano technology takes the digital piano to an entirely new level. While traditional digital designs focus on creating a simple snapshot of an acoustic piano’s sound, SuperNATURAL Piano gives pianists a complete playing experience, with the touch, feel, and tonal behavior of a real acoustic grand. For the ultimate in rich, natural sound and true dynamic expressiveness, nothing comes close to SuperNATURAL Piano.

MULTISAMPLING SuperNATURAL Piano combines 88-key multisampling with Roland’s revolutionary V-Piano® technology, creating an incredibly accurate reproduction of a fi ne acoustic grand.

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NATURAL DECAY SuperNATURAL Piano provides pleasing and natural note decay, even with variations in damper pedal use.

EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCEVisit www.RolandUS.com/SuperNATURAL to learn more about SuperNATURAL pianos.

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mmr september 2012

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