Music stores struggle to tune up sales

June 2, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

With dusty, out-of-print music filling the shelves and the quiet — absolute quiet most days — Pontones Music & More in Grove City might be mistaken for a library on some days.

As more instruments, sheet music and even lessons are sold online or through chain stores, independent music shops are struggling as never before.

But it’s different on Wednesday nights.

The industry gloom makes the Pontones Music Jam all the more welcome to the fiddlers, guitar pickers and crooners who gather at the shop on Broadway each week.

“That’s when you get music coming from out of a music store,” said co-owner Maria Pontones.

The washtub bass and ukulele player, flutist and more than a dozen guitarists arrive well before the official 6:30 p.m. start.

Pontones is master of ceremonies during the three hours, as almost 20 singers lead songs that are heavy on bluegrass and country. Merle Haggard and Hank Williams Sr. are favorites.

Most of the players follow along by ear, unable to read music, said Jim Ross, who plays guitar and sings. “It’s relaxing, although you go home all wired up.

“I feel kind of loyal to them,” he said of the Pontones store, “because they care enough about doing something I like.”

The independent music store is something of an endangered species.

Mount Vernon lost its only full-service music store recently when a larger company bought out Colonial Music there and turned its focus to school-musicians and mail orders.

“We were losing more sales to Walmart for inferior products,” said company President Judy Kessler.

And the venerable String Shoppe in Columbus’ University District shut down when the South Campus Gateway complex built out a few years ago.

Pontones had to make a hard decision about the future of the Grove City store six years ago, after the deaths of her parents, who founded it in 1968.

“We couldn’t sell it, and we couldn’t liquidate it,” she said, adding that she decided, “If you can’t get rid of it, you’ve got to do something with it.”

That’s when she enlisted the help of a childhood friend, Clara Jo Vance, who was unemployed at the time and now is co-owner.

The shop is a sort of time capsule for 1968. A commemorative dinner plate honoring President Lyndon B. Johnson hangs on a wall. A “Sing for Candy” bowl is filled with treats.

Pontones’ 5-year-old poodle, Beni, is a constant presence.

Pontones, 58, who also is a nurse, is happy to keep the store open, despite barely covering her $575 monthly rent.

What profit is made comes from consignment sales, music lessons, reeds, valve oil, strings, tuners and other accessories. The shop is open daily except Sundays.

Small shops credit personal service and knowledge of their community for helping them stay afloat.

For Tim Becker, co-owner of Martin Music in Newark, an occasional Internet sale helps.

“Our first commitment is to our community, but on a pragmatic basis, we want our business to survive and prosper.”

He recently sold a rare, 1973 French Loree oboe to a professor in Philadelphia for one-tenth of its $9,000 list price.

“I’m selling a professional oboe that, chances are, there was no home for in Newark,” he said.

When a music shop dies, part of the community goes with it, Becker said.

“It affects the local guitar player, the local music teacher, the school music programs and the old lady who plays piano on Sundays.”

For all the challenges that independent music shops face, hope for a resurgence remains in the renewed interest in music, buoyed by TV’s “American Idol” and the video game “Guitar Hero.”

“Music’s prevalence in our society right now has never been higher,” said Scott Robertson, spokesman for the National Association of Music Merchants, which represents more than 4,500 music shops.

“Music is critical to life. It’s what it means to be human,” he said. “Retailers are working harder than they ever have to earn their customers’ business.”

For independent shops, that means being part of the fabric of a community.

At Becker’s store in Newark, that’s represented by a jug that sits on a counter, silently accepting donations of spare change for a fund to help kids pay for lessons and earn instruments. Local teachers nominate students to receive aid.

At Pontones in Grove City, that means being the place to be on Wednesday nights for amateur musicians such as Charlie Hummel, 82.

“It’s sort of a therapy thing for us guys who can’t play professionally or in front of people,” he said. “When you’re playing, you can’t think of anything else.”

Pontones is pragmatic about her future. “We don’t know. Hopefully, we stay open.

“It’s better than a nursing home.”