Economy hits sour note, but school bands find harmony
When the going gets tough in school budgets, administrators often take the ax to music programs and the arts. But suburban parents have yet to put the squeeze on music budgets, says Mike Schaner, general manager of PM Music Center in Aurora, which rents band and orchestra instruments to kids in more than 100 suburban schools from Grayslake to LaGrange.
A PM flier reading, "Save money with low, fixed-price rental fees (starting at $17) that don't increase," appeal to budget-minded parents.
"We have not seen any drop," Schaner says. "So far our rental business is up this year. It's grown every year."
The suburbs aren't the only place where music drowns out the recession. Nationwide, the school music market was up 6.2 percent in 2007, and "retailers are absolutely swamped with rentals this year," says Scott Robertson, director of marketing and communications for NAMM, the international association of retailers and manufacturers in the music business. "We think it's going to be a record season."
Used flutes or trumpets, which don't require reeds or sticks to play, are PM Music Center's cheapest to rent and biggest sellers at $17 a month for school bands.
The orchestra is dominated by $17 violins.
Our sagging economy hasn't cut into those rentals.
"If we were charging 35 bucks a month, maybe we would see that," says Frank Pampenella, president of PM Music Center.
Even the new $25 flutes are renting well, as are oboes and alto saxophones ($27 used and $35 new) and cellos ($27), Schaner says. A month ago, PM Music even delivered a new xylophone to Oswego Community Unit School District 308, Schaner says. That percussion instrument, the tuba and a double French horn are the most expensive rentals at $99 a month.
Since many schools start band programs in the spring or conduct summer band camps, many of the rental agreements were inked long before the start of school. Some young musicians use a sibling's hand-me-down clarinet or Aunt Laurie's old oboe, but a few fledging musicians run out and buy the instrument they hope to learn how to play. Schaner says 95 percent of kids rent their first instruments.
The average life of a rental instrument is between seven and 10 years, Schaner says, adding that "very few instruments get destroyed." PM, which runs an on-site repair shop, replaces about 10 to 15 percent of the instruments in the rental pool each year.
Many instruments are made in Asia, where the dropping value of the dollar has made them more expensive to buy, but that cost hasn't yet trickled down to suburban rental customers, Schaner says. Even if costs do rise, suburban bands and orchestras should still tune out the bad economic news.
"The Midwest is a real epicenter of band and orchestras," Schaner says. Because so many of the musical instrument manufacturers were (and in some cases still are) in Indiana, Chicago, Michigan and Wisconsin, the Midwest always has had strong music programs in schools. (The marching bands in Texas, on the other hand, are "driven by the strength of the football program," Schaner says.)
While the death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band might spur an interest in saxophones in some areas, our suburban school students are more likely to be influenced by local musicians such as trumpeter John Hagstrom of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Schaner says.
"The enduring popularity of school music programs in the United States has created a market that is truly the envy of the world," concludes the 2008 NAMM Global Report on the music industry. "Despite periodic budget pressures and a thicket of educational regulations that impede musical participation, the U.S. school music movement remains remarkably resilient."
That's good news for parents, as kids who play in bands and orchestras generally stay out of trouble and do better in school.
"The rental business is going very well and hasn't been affected by the recession," Robertson says. "The well-document benefits of making music are what parents want for their kids in spite of the economy."