I didn't know whether to make this a 3-star or 4-star review, but as I'm such a nice person, I upped it to 4.
The old-fashioned nature of this shop is its strength and weakness.
It has got just about every piece of music you want, and very many that no-one will ever have heard of, let alone buy. And if they haven't got it, they will print it for you (if it exists), as I discovered with Russ Conway's 'Side Saddle'. They've also got some DVDs that I had never imagined existed, like some obscure jazz ones and some comedy ones (the 2 categories are not usually related...). They have a wide range of CDs (everything except rock), and a separate section of musical instruments. So they have pretty much everything to do with playing music.
So what about the down side? Well, I find it annoying that there are Hands Off signs on all the musical instruments. I realise that it must be really irritating for the staff (and other customers) to hear Chosticks for the millionth time, but it would be nice to be able to play a bit on some of the keyboards to hear their tone, without intending to purchase immediately.
The sheet music systme may make sense to the staff, but I've looked there several times for pieces, and had to give up and ask a member of staff, who knew where it was...
And although there are a lot of DVDs I haven't seen anywhere else, the prices are generally quite high, and certainly not enough to dissuade me from going to Amazon.
It's a rare institution, a throwback to pre-internet days. How long it will last I don't know. But it does have that one thing that the internet will never have - people to talk to face to face, and that should count for something these days. read more