One-of-a-kind music store keeps the South Bay in tune

5 Reasons to love San Jose’s Music Village

Living in Silicon Valley all but requires a large amount of tech intrusion in your life. Most of us are pretty blase about having an app for just about anything or spotting somebody peering through Google Glass to their tablet (I totally saw a guy doing this last week). But living among all this innovation makes it hard finding a balance between the virtual and the actual. Sure, having something delivered to your house within an hour of tapping an app is a timesaver, but it also denies you a small opportunity for human contact that day. That is why supporting local businesses is good in several ways: you get that irreplaceable human touch and you do good for the economy by shopping local. One beloved local business is Cambrian Park and Blossom Valley’s Music Village, a store where you can get instruments, sheet music and lessons all in one place. Get to know this wonderful place and get inspired to buy local.

1) The personal touch

When I was still teaching piano, I used to visit Music Village at least once a month. The store’s employees helped me order books that were not in stock or gave thoughtful suggestions on alternatives. They were never too busy to help out and were more than willing to work with me on finding a price within my budget (read: price matching). That’s not something your friendly, anonymous eBay seller is willing to do for you. I urge you to form a relationship with a local store owner or employee, because the level of service you will receive can’t be found anywhere online.

2) Expert advice

This part will come in handy when your child decides to take up alto sax or some other instrument you don’t know anything about. And this is also where any online retailer loses points big time. Unless you know exactly what you want to buy, always go to a brick-and-mortar store and talk to experts. At Music Village, all the salespeople I met were musicians themselves and knew a lot about buying instruments on a budget. In my experience, they’re one of the rare places that won’t try to sell you on something you don’t need. In fact, they might even dissuade you from dropping cash on unnecessary extras. They’ll patiently answer all your questions and you’ll leave knowing a lot more about instruments than when you came in. With Amazon, on the other hand, your Q&A session will most likely look like this:

Don’t let this happen to you

3) Rento-to-own programs

Once you buy an instrument, you’re pretty much committed to it. But what if your kid just wants to try it for a while and see if it sticks (a very good idea where children are concerned)? This is where rent-to-own programs are a genius idea. In fact, most music stores have them. However, they’re not always a great deal as many places reserve their brand- name instruments for sale and only rent out lower-quality, off-brand merchandise. What’s more, even if your rental instrument turns out to be great, you can almost never buy it because it has been designated as a “rental only”. So, your rental money goes towards a purchase of another instrument that you’ve never played. Sounds shady? It kinda is, but thankfully Music Village is one of the few music stores that doesn’t work this way. They rent out only the best, brand-name instruments (like Yamaha,King and Selmer), and you can put your rental fees towards purchasing the instrument you rented. You can also put the fees towards another instrument if you’re not into your rental, but it’s good to have the choice. You can see their full rental terms here.

(photo: Courtesy of Music Village)

4) One stop shop

Music lessons are a big investment. You have to buy the instrument, keep a constant supply of parts and accessories and fix it when it breaks. With Music Village you can do all that in one place under the guidance of knowledgeable staff members. What’s more, you can even find a great teacher and take lessons in the store’s cozy music studios. You can see a full list of their teachers here. Buy, rent, repair, learn in one stop. It makes life so much easier easy for parents who have to juggle a lot of after-school activities.

5) Two locations

With two stores in Cambrian Park and Blossom Valley, Music Village is a rarity among small music stores these days. Very few shops can sustain two locations and with the Bay Area’s already steep leasing rates constantly rising, Music Village must be doing something right to have stayed in business for 50 years. Two stores means that parents of band kids (their primary customers) don’t have to drive far for repair or spare parts or that local music teachers can quickly find what they’re looking for in their large catalog.

Two locations in Cambrian Park (left) and Blossom Valley (right)

Next time you need to find some obscure sheet music, repair your old clarinet, buy a new guitar or start music lessons, give Music Village a try and support a great local business.