adventures in guitar shops
Although I love playing guitar and bass (all kinds of basses BTW), I hate guitar stores. There is, perhaps, only one guitar store that I've ever felt welcome. Unfortunately, Triple R Guitars is about 500 miles from where I currently reside.
The reason for my disgust with guitar stores lies mainly with the employees. I've frequented the three main stores in the Columbia, SC area. And with a few exception have found the employees to almost intolerable. They are rude, unhelpful, and full of contempt for anyone who isn't some famous guitar hero. Here is my take on the stores I've gone to so far in the area.
First there is Pecknel Music, located downtown. This store main focus is on classical instruction. Their sheet music selection is probably the best in town, ranging from classical string quartets to jazz improve books to guitar tabs for the rocker guys. They repair a variety of instruments in the store. Their guitar and bass selection is the fairly poor. Mostly beginner guitars and whatnot, and they have the worst instrument prices in town. The reason I don't car for them much is that every time I go in there I get a "may I help you". This is fine, but it comes with a tone and look that says, "We are watching you because you look like you might try to steal something". I never get that friendly music teacher kinda feeling from them that theyare supposed to be known for.
Second on my list is Musician's Supply which happens to be really close to my house. These guys are the absolute worst. It must be entirely family owned and operated. This is normally a good thing, but I think all their snot-nosed punk kids work in the store. Most of them ignore me while they goof around on the instruments all day with their friends. By far the worst customer service I've ever gotten. I've gone in there a few times looking for sheet music (they have one of the better selections of rock books in town). There's been atleast one time that I've walked out, not buying anything even though they had what I was looking for.
And last but not least is Sim's which I choose to frequent only because one and only one guy in there happens to be extremely helpful and nice. Which is great except for the fact that he is the only person to have decent customer service skills. The last time I was in there I was not so lucky. Again, I get some younger dude, probably mid 20's to early 30's. I decided to ask about a beginner's guitar book for my wife, who was recently given a guitar. We discussed some things and I got virtually no help. I ended up going with my gut on the instruction book that I felt was appropriate for now. This brings me to another topic, guitar tablature.
For those who don't know, guitar tabulature is a number system used to show the position on the fret board of a guitar where the notes of music should be played. Sometimes tabulature appears alone and other times it appears with the standard written music. I prefer having both tab and written music to use for either guitar or bass but especially for guitar. My reasons for this is that for many intermediate to advanced peices it is difficult to imediately recognize what position to use on the guitar. This is because the strings on a guitar are so closely tuned together (in fourths) that you have many alternatives to use. So, for someone who has a working knowledge of music or has played an instrument before this can be extremely useful when learning guitar. Unfortunately, few instruction books use tabs and the guy in the store was very anti-tab as I found out. And as soon as I mentioned tabs he gave me the same look of contempt I get from every other guy in a music store. Lucky for the store it was not the guy I was used to working with. When I asked about particular books, he seemed to give me general descriptions without any kind of instight into how good the material really was. And this guy is supposed to be an instructor of guitar at this store.
Now, I understand the importance of reading music. I've been playing music for a long time on a variety of instruments. My goal was to find an instruction book that combined the music from a more classical approach that included tabs. I learned alot through tabs even though I can read guitar music fairly well. No such luck with finding such a book, but I did settle on the book that I had originally considered.
So, I forget about the episode for awhile until today when I began reading the liner notes to a Bela Fleck album. Bela Fleck is perhaps one of the best known banjo players in the world. He plays a variety of music ranging from standard bluegrass to jazz and classical. In the notes to this particular album he mentions the use of banjo tabs. Now, this is a serious professional musician, a guy who's played with some of the best in the business, describing why he uses tabs. I was completely floored when he gave the exact same reason I gave to this idiot guitar store guy.
I have to guess that this guy assumed that I knew jack about music the second I said tabs. I feel vindicated now.
The reason for my disgust with guitar stores lies mainly with the employees. I've frequented the three main stores in the Columbia, SC area. And with a few exception have found the employees to almost intolerable. They are rude, unhelpful, and full of contempt for anyone who isn't some famous guitar hero. Here is my take on the stores I've gone to so far in the area.
First there is Pecknel Music, located downtown. This store main focus is on classical instruction. Their sheet music selection is probably the best in town, ranging from classical string quartets to jazz improve books to guitar tabs for the rocker guys. They repair a variety of instruments in the store. Their guitar and bass selection is the fairly poor. Mostly beginner guitars and whatnot, and they have the worst instrument prices in town. The reason I don't car for them much is that every time I go in there I get a "may I help you". This is fine, but it comes with a tone and look that says, "We are watching you because you look like you might try to steal something". I never get that friendly music teacher kinda feeling from them that theyare supposed to be known for.
Second on my list is Musician's Supply which happens to be really close to my house. These guys are the absolute worst. It must be entirely family owned and operated. This is normally a good thing, but I think all their snot-nosed punk kids work in the store. Most of them ignore me while they goof around on the instruments all day with their friends. By far the worst customer service I've ever gotten. I've gone in there a few times looking for sheet music (they have one of the better selections of rock books in town). There's been atleast one time that I've walked out, not buying anything even though they had what I was looking for.
And last but not least is Sim's which I choose to frequent only because one and only one guy in there happens to be extremely helpful and nice. Which is great except for the fact that he is the only person to have decent customer service skills. The last time I was in there I was not so lucky. Again, I get some younger dude, probably mid 20's to early 30's. I decided to ask about a beginner's guitar book for my wife, who was recently given a guitar. We discussed some things and I got virtually no help. I ended up going with my gut on the instruction book that I felt was appropriate for now. This brings me to another topic, guitar tablature.
For those who don't know, guitar tabulature is a number system used to show the position on the fret board of a guitar where the notes of music should be played. Sometimes tabulature appears alone and other times it appears with the standard written music. I prefer having both tab and written music to use for either guitar or bass but especially for guitar. My reasons for this is that for many intermediate to advanced peices it is difficult to imediately recognize what position to use on the guitar. This is because the strings on a guitar are so closely tuned together (in fourths) that you have many alternatives to use. So, for someone who has a working knowledge of music or has played an instrument before this can be extremely useful when learning guitar. Unfortunately, few instruction books use tabs and the guy in the store was very anti-tab as I found out. And as soon as I mentioned tabs he gave me the same look of contempt I get from every other guy in a music store. Lucky for the store it was not the guy I was used to working with. When I asked about particular books, he seemed to give me general descriptions without any kind of instight into how good the material really was. And this guy is supposed to be an instructor of guitar at this store.
Now, I understand the importance of reading music. I've been playing music for a long time on a variety of instruments. My goal was to find an instruction book that combined the music from a more classical approach that included tabs. I learned alot through tabs even though I can read guitar music fairly well. No such luck with finding such a book, but I did settle on the book that I had originally considered.
So, I forget about the episode for awhile until today when I began reading the liner notes to a Bela Fleck album. Bela Fleck is perhaps one of the best known banjo players in the world. He plays a variety of music ranging from standard bluegrass to jazz and classical. In the notes to this particular album he mentions the use of banjo tabs. Now, this is a serious professional musician, a guy who's played with some of the best in the business, describing why he uses tabs. I was completely floored when he gave the exact same reason I gave to this idiot guitar store guy.
I have to guess that this guy assumed that I knew jack about music the second I said tabs. I feel vindicated now.