Powerlung T343A Performer Series

Powerlung T343A Performer Series



Powerlung T343A Performer Series
For an advanced student or professional who wants to perfect breathing support, resonance and phrasing more >
List Price: $104.00
Our Price: $89.99

Amati ABN41S Bassoon

Amati ABN41S Bassoon



An excellent instrument for the bassoonist on a tight budget, the Amati ABN41S bassoon plays with the more >
List Price: $5,275.00
Our Price: $2,765.00

Jupiter Model 355 Oboe

Jupiter Model 355 Oboe



An excellent oboe for the student player, the Jupiter 355 student oboe is made with a durable, dense more >
List Price: $1,865.00
Our Price: $1,439.00

Yamaha YAS-82Z Professional Custom Alto Saxophone

Yamaha YAS-82Z Professional Custom Alto Saxophone



Yamaha YAS-82Z Professional Custom Alto Saxophone
The Yamaha YAS-82Z alto saxophone features a sound a nd response that fits in well in all genres of music. more >
List Price: $4,228.99
Our Price: $2,695.01

Buffet BC1131-2-0 R13 Bb Clarinets (Nickel / Silver)

Buffet BC1131-2-0 R13 Bb Clarinets (Nickel / Silver)



Developed in 1955 by Robert Carré, the Buffet R13 Bb Clarinets (BC1131-2-0*) are the world's most popular more >
List Price: $4,278.99
Our Price: $2,567.00

Yamaha YFL-461 Flute

Yamaha YFL-461 Flute



The YFL-461 intermediate flute is not only an outstanding choice for the advancing student but it features more >
List Price: $2,399.99
Our Price: $1,653.01

Gemeinhardt 2SP Student Flute

Gemeinhardt 2SP Student Flute
The Gemeinhardt 2SP is the world's most popular student flute! Durably constructed for years of play, more >
List Price: $790.00
Our Price: $350.00

WWBW Sale

Vandoren Rue Lepic Clarinet Reeds - New Low Price $19.49

Save up to $149 on select Guardala Mouthpieces

Woodwind Grab Bag - $19.99 or less

Free $300 Gift Card with Buffet R13 Clarinets

Massive BandNOW / Barrington Blowout - Instruments starting at $49.95!

Buffet BC1131-2-0 R13 Bb Clarinet

Our Price: $2,901.00
List Price: $4,834.99
You Save: $1,933.99

Buy Now & Receive a FREE $300 WWBW Gift Card
Developed in 1955 by Robert Carré, the Buffet R13 Bb Clarinets (BC1131-2-0*) are the world's most popular professional clarinets and fit well for all types of musician. The R13 is a clarinet with unparalleled flexibility, focus, response and a lively sound that can be found no where else. The body of the R13 clarinet is made from hand selected and stained grenadilla wood and features a poly-cylindrical bore which provides for better focus in the tone and effects more “ring”. Each R13 is complete with leather covered, wood case and all necessary care accessories.

Description
Buffet Crampon R-13 has stained Grenadilla wood, hand burnished bore, power forged keywork and posts, preplated in copper and finished in either nickel or silver plate, silver plated adjustable thumb rest, undercut tone holes, polycarbonate fiber reinforced tenons, Gore-Tex pads.

History
Throughout its long lifetime Buffet Crampon has developed the most complete range of clarinets, while always taking musicians', conductors' and composers' requirements into consideration. Developed in 1955 under the guidance of Robert Carrée, the R13 clarinet quickly became the legendary choice of professional musicians. Musicians are charmed by its rich and focused sound, its power in all registers and its flexibility. The R13 is suitable for all types of musician, symphony or chamber music, soloists, teachers, those in marching bands, students and amateurs.

Selmer Paris 64 Series III Tenor Saxophone

Our Price: $3,995.00
List Price: $6,660.00
You Save: $2,665.00


Selmer Paris FREE Guardala King Mouthpiece / K & M Sax Stand
Bright and responsive, the Selmer 64 Series III tenor saxophone integrates many features of previous Selmer saxophones. The great projection and flexible sound of the 64 Series III tenor saxophone make it a popular choice among both jazz and classical saxophonists. Complete with Paris Lite case, Selmer Paris C* tenor saxophone mouthpiece, ligature and cap as well as necessary care products. Available in Lacquer, Silver Plate, Matte finish or Black; with or without engraving.

Rico Reeds

Rico Reeds
Technology and Tradition
By Matt Taylor

There's a joke goes, when two woodwind players meet, they don't greet each other with "how are you?" but rather "have you got a good reed?" Reeds are small in size, but their importance to reed players is huge. The musician produces sound by blowing air past the reed at a precise pressure, producing the vibration that creates the sound. Reeds that sound great are worth their weight in gold to serious wind players.

Rico Reeds: Technology and tradition Rico Reeds has been providing a diverse selection of reeds for wind players for close to a century. The company has recently renovated and upgraded their agricultural and production facilities, and has also introduced some interesting new products for wind players.

The Rico story
The Rico Reeds story goes back to 1926, when Frank De Michele, a clarinetist with the Walt Disney Studio, was frustrated with his inability to find good quality reeds. He turned to his uncle in Paris, Joseph Rico, a well-known musician, composer, and conductor, to see if he could send him some good reeds. His uncle complied and Frank was delighted with the quality. He kept requesting more reeds (his musician friends eagerly depleted his supply. Finally Frank convinced Joseph to send him a supply of cane so that he could try making his own reeds.

Rico's source was the large stands of cane found near his vacation cottage in the Var region in southern France. Joseph sent a large shipment to his nephew and Joseph started his commercial reed-making enterprise. The business was christened Rico and it has gone on to become one of the music industry's pre-eminent providers of fine reeds.

Where it all starts
The plant that produces reed cane is Arundo donax, is a variety of giant grass. The cane harvest is culled by hand, and then suitable canes are harvested, dehusked, and laid out in the sun. After this drying process, the canes are put into well-ventilated sheds for curing.

Rico Reeds was acquired by D'Addario a little over a year ago. Since then much research and development has gone into agronomy, fertilization, and irrigation practices. There has been considerable investment into more lands for growing. Rico has large tracts in the traditional cane-growing areas of France, with over 120 acres in production near Hyeres, and has recently expanded its plantations in South America with new growing areas.

Factory innovation
Rico has made significant improvements in its factories as well. The factory at Sun Valley, California, is a marvel of advanced technology. Rico is implementing an environment that's humidity-controlled around the clock for remarkable consistency and control of reed quality. New digital reed-making design and manufacturing equipment is allowing Rico to produce reeds that are the same across the line, with remarkably little variation. Artist studios and recording facilities for acoustical testing are on-site for constant monitoring of the sound quality of the reeds in musical performance.

A parade of champions
The Rico family of reeds has evolved into several lines to meet the needs of players ranging from classical and jazz virtuosos at the top of their careers to students just learning their instrument and everyone in-between.

Rico standard reeds are affordably priced and very versatile. They're made of a flexible grade of cane, so they are easy to play and the most popular reeds with beginning students.

Rico Royals are made with top-quality cane while still offering affordability. French filing (extra bark is removed above the vamp) gives these reeds great response. The low register is particularly impressive, allowing great clarity of tone and soft attack.

Rico Select Jazz reeds are optimized for contemporary and traditional jazz mouthpieces. They feature a strong, well-defined heart and upper vamp that yield great projection and clear, fat tone, with awesome flexibility and lightning-like response. Select Jazz reeds are available with or without French filing.

LaVoz is another line of reeds crafted of premium cane, unfiled for deep, powerful tone. They're the reed of choice for many top jazz players, including Michael Brecker.

The Grand Concert Select family of reeds features more heart material for tone that's exquisitely pure, warm, and transparent. The sound is stable and consistent in all registers. The cut provides unrivaled flexibility for precise articulation and interval changes. The consistency from reed-to-reed is amazing. These reeds are the choice of such virtuoso classical performers as Ricardo Morales, principal clarinetist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The ReedVitalizer
In the summer of 2004, in an event at NYU's School of Music featuring special guest hornman extraordinaire Michael Brecker, Rico introduced their new ReedVitalizer Humidity Control Pack. Brecker had queried Rico a couple of years ago to see if a product existed that would let him store his reeds in a humidity-controlled, ready-to-play condition. The ReedVitalizer accomplishes this simply and effectively. It consists of a reed storage bag and a Humidipack, which keeps the humidity at an ideal level as determined by the player. Three different humidity levels are available: 58% Stable Storage; 73% Minimal Wetting; and 84% Ready to Play. Humidipacks generally last a couple of months before they must be replaced.

The oboist in our local symphony gave the ReedVitalizer a try and she was very impressed. She remarked that it made a reed that was on the verge of being "played out" perform like it was in its prime again.

The sound of success
When it comes to your music, Rico Reeds offers you products that are the result of decades of experience combined with a constant quest for improvement. They've been earning the trust of many of the world's greatest musicians for decades. With Rico reeds and innovative products like the ReedVitalizer, you can be confident that your instrument will always be ready for peak performance.

MusicPad Pro Plus

Hands-On Product Review: MusicPad Pro Plus
Sheet music for the digital age
By Christine Martin
MusicPad Pro Plus

Freehand Systems is revolutionizing the way musicians look at sheet music with MusicPad Pro Plus—a portable tablet that stores all your sheet music and more. A touchscreen about the size of a piece of paper lets you make marks and notations right on the page of music. It comes with software to organize your digital music portfolio and to transfer scores between your computer and the tablet. Musician’s Friend shipped me the latest-and-greatest MusicPad Pro Plus Version 4.0 to review.

Inside the box I found the touch-screen pad with a stylus, power pack, 128MB external USB flash drive, USB cable, software installation CD, and the optional footpedal. There are two USB ports on the MusicPad tablet: one to transfer music from your PC or Mac and one to attach external devices like the USB memory module or a USB wireless device. There’s a video out, a jack to connect the footpedal, and an audio out. MusicPad Pro Version 4.0 also comes equipped with premium tools, which you can unlock with an optional $49.95 product key from freehandsystems.com. These tools include wireless networking, a metronome, pitch pipe, and an audio player for MP3s, plus additional pen colors and annotation tools.
Impressive organization

After installing MusicPad Manager software on my computer, I downloaded some music from freehandmusic.com’s selection of nearly 75,000 scores, scanned in my sheet music library, and imported music files from Sibelius and Finale directly into MusicPad Pro. Then I transferred my music library onto the MusicPad via USB and all my music was ready to go anywhere!

As a band director and gigging musician, my musical life is always busy and in the past it has been a huge headache to organize and manage all the scores I needed. I took the MusicPad along on a busy Friday with band practice in the morning and a gig at night and I was amazed at how much the MusicPad helped me get organized.

Getting ready on Thursday, I created playlists of all the different scores I needed at each event, so I could bring them up in order when I needed them. It was easy to find the scores I was looking for with the familiar computer-like controls, the touchscreen, and the browse capabilities, which let me set the search criteria for file, title, composer, instrument, date, or size, and add/delete more levels as needed. I could also sort search results by simply tapping the top of the column, plus I could save the search to pull it up again later with the QuickFind tab. Once I found the score I wanted, it was easy to add to a playlist with the tap of an arrow or just by dragging-and-dropping it.

Next, I tried out MusicPad Pro’s annotation capabilities and was really impressed. There are plenty of tools to annotate a score any way you want—you can add handwritten or typed notes; highlight sections; and add notes, rests, and more, all in different colors. You can even zoom in on the score for precise annotations. There are a variety of eraser tools—so you can erase your annotations, marks that were picked up when you scanned the score, everything but the staff lines, or everything including the staff lines. You can even hide annotations and turn them back on easily.

I also marked specific musical passages by adding rehearsal marks and Teleport Pads at convenient intervals throughout the pages. Teleport Pads let me jump to a specific location in the score by simply tapping on them, making it easy to navigate quickly during rehearsals and performances.
MusicPad Pro Plus
MusicPad Pro Plus
Scores to go

At rehearsal on Friday, I used the video out with a portable projector to project the scores so my pupils could follow along and see the annotations I had made. The versatile page-turning abilities of the MusicPad came in handy and I definitely didn’t miss fumbling through my papers. There are six ways to turn the page with the MusicPad: touch the right half of the screen to turn forward and the left to turn back; or use the toolbar, page navigation bar, rehearsal marks navigation bar, Teleport Pads, or the footpedal. You can even record repeats and cuts, so the MusicPad knows where to go in the score when a repeat appears or to skip a section where there’s a cut.

Later that night at the gig, the lighting was really low and red, so I changed the MusicPad’s color and the brightness of the background to match. It was far more aesthetically pleasing than my usual music stand and light and much more legible. I also switched the view from portrait to landscape orientation. In portrait mode, I could set the score to display look-ahead pages, which show the bottom of the current page with the top of the next page. The landscape mode also offers look-ahead pages and let me view two pages side by side, which I prefer for performance.

I was thoroughly impressed by MusicPad Pro. I can spend a lot less time managing my music library and more time and energy doing what I love to do. The productivity gains are similar to that with a computer. Can you imagine living without a computer these days? Well, now that I’ve used the MusicPad, I can’t imagine life without it either. I will never again forget a piece of music or have a page blow in the wind. And I’ll never have to cart around piles of music or deal with turning pages by hand in mid-performance! MusicPad Pro Plus is the ultimate tool for any musician who works with sheet music.
Features and Specs:

* 12.1" TFT LCD backlit, low-glare color touchscreen
* Resolution: 1024 x 768
* 128MB external USB flash drive
* 32MB internal flash memory
* Video/audio out
* AC power and rechargeable battery
* 2 USB ports (1 host, 1 device)
* Built-in jack for optional footpedal
* Size: 13.3" x 9.9" x 1.8" (just over 4 lbs.)
* One-year limited warranty

Musician's Friend Clearance Center

Musician's Friend Clearance Center


At our bulging Clearance Center we've unearthed $5,879,950 worth of overstocks, returns, refurbs, and discontinued gear. To find homes for it all, we've slashed prices—in many cases well below our original cost. Below you'll see just a small sampling of what's on hand. Shop now for the best selection. And check back regularly; we're constantly finding more buried treasure.

Barrington Model 301 Alto Sax

Our Price: $199.95
List Price: $925.00
You Save: $725.05

Start right!! The Barrington 301 Student Alto Saxophone is our best value in student saxophones. Designed with comfortable key work, pure sound and solid intonation, the Barrington 301 Alto Saxophone proves an excellent alternative to renting.

BandNow Student Clarinet Closeout

BandNow Student Clarinet Closeout
Our Price: $79.95
List Price: $338.00
You Save: $258.05


Special Does Not Include Mouthpiece & Ligature.
Take advantage of our overstock. We bought too many of these quality student clarinets and need to move them out fast. Why rent when you can own your own durable, student clarinet for less than $80.00??!! Get them playing for LESS!! The BandNOW Bb clarinet offers an excellent alternative to renting for the younger student and is a perfect marching band clarinet for the high school player. Made of durable resin with nickle plated keys, the BandNOW Bb clarinet comes with a case but no mouthpiece, ligature or cap.

Rico Alto Clarinet Reeds

Rico Alto Clarinet Reeds 3 25-pack


A versatile reed cut from a very flexible grade of cane.

Designed for a wide variety of playing situations, Rico Alto Clarinet Reeds are cut of Rico's most flexible grade of cane. The ease of play, affordable price and convenient packaging options are why more musicians worldwide choose Rico reeds.

Rico Alto Clarinet Reeds Features:

* Designed for ease of play
* Cut from flexible cane

Rico Bass Clarinet Reeds

Rico Bass Clarinet Reeds 3 10-pack


A versatile reed cut from a very flexible grade of cane.

Designed for a wide variety of playing situations, Rico Bass Clarinet Reeds are cut of our most flexible grade of cane. The ease of play, affordable price and convenient packaging options are why more musicians worldwide choose Rico reeds.

Rico Bass Clarinet Reeds Features:

* Designed for ease of play
* Cut from flexible cane

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