Music and Arts

2012 Review #19:
Music and Arts is a franchise music store, which provides instruments for rental or purchase, as well as books, supplies, and music. There are hundreds of locations over the country, and three in the greater Denver area. They are commonly found at rental fairs in school districts, where they rent instruments and supplies to students on a monthly basis. They have representatives that theoretically travel to schools, taking school orders and delivering products.

My use of Music and Arts has been having students of mine renting their instruments through a rental fair. Our representative who comes to our school is definitely a salesman, but in a strange, meek way. Their presence at our rental fair was equal to other vendors, but they ran out of instruments to rent to my students. For the students who did rent instruments through Music and Arts, very few received all the supplies that they needed. There are standard supplies that students of different instruments will need, and that's a pretty well-known fact. To not include these items, (like a piece of sponge for use as a shoulder rest) is just silly, and prevents the student from getting an adequate start. For my students who were missing some items, a salesman said he would come by their school and deliver the missing items, and this took almost 2 weeks.

I tried several times to order some sheet music from this store because they honored the lowest price available online. The first time, I ordered the song and wasn't told for 2 weeks (should have been delivered by this point) that it was back-ordered. We waited several more weeks before it arrived. More recently I rented two pieces. One arrived within a week, but the other literally disappeared. After two weeks, a salesman called me to check in. I got back from winter break (now 4 1/2 weeks) and it still hadn't arrived. I began calling him every day, almost begging for a response. Finally I had to order it again, but called the salesman first to let him know. I still have not heard from him. As far as I'm concerned that's the last time I'm bothering to interact with this company.