July 15, 2024 - A MUSICIAN’S LIFE
It’s not what we leave in the end…it’s what we did along the way.
In the 1960s, the "folk riot" at Washington Square Park arrested thousands of protesting folk singers, including this future autoharp virtuoso
Our upcoming event, on July 31th is gathering lots of steam. We are really excited about Banjo and Baseball. We have tickets available at the store for only $10. This is a day game starting at 1:05 and should be done by 4 o’clock. Come down and help us celebrate everything that is banjos and baseball. You can also scan this QR code for more information.
when life is like a bowl of cherries spice it up add some ice cream from Seneca Farms!
A MUSICIAN’S LIFE
July 15th, 2024
Good mornings folks,
Recently an acquaintance brought in several boxes of "musical items" that they thought we might be interested in purchasing. Everything came from the storage space of a retired musician. They brought the boxes to us in hopes that we would be able to offer some money and eventually help the musician pay off some of their debts. I bought the pile for more money than I probably should have paid and my staff looked at me and said, "Why did you buy all this crap? By the time we catalog it all in we won’t make anything on it?". They were right… but it was not about the money. Now, as we stood there looking at this pile, I turned to Alex and Sam… two of our long time employees, who also are both working musicians..in their early 30s. I said to them, "You two are great musicians. You are at the beginning of your careers. You are young and you have everything to look forward to. You will acquire many things over your career…experiences, instruments, ideas, memories, failures and accomplishments. What we are looking at here, is the end of someone’s career….what’s left over after the applause, the praise and audiences have silenced. Let’s be as caring to someone at the end of their career as we are when they are at their peak. We’re all going to leave this plane of existence, but let us go with kindness and dignity. Let us at least be supportive and respectful.
Below is a screenshot of a letter I wrote 18 years ago when we opened the store in July of ‘06.. Buried in there are the following lines:
"Someone asked me, why, at your age, when you should be looking at retirement, would you ever want to open a new store? You had the perfect life?" I answered them all….I love this town and all that it has to offer and I feel an obligation to give something back. I hope this little music store will encourage others to rebuild downtown Rochester."
With peace,
John Bernunzio
Using the "wayback machine", that captures screenshots of websites over the course of time, we came across this letter announcing the opening of our store 18 years ago this month.
Night ride…Penn Yan, NY