{"id":2183791,"date":"2025-12-02T07:25:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T07:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2183791"},"modified":"2025-12-02T07:25:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T07:25:35","slug":"local-holiday-shopping-new-canaan-music-qa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/local-holiday-shopping-new-canaan-music-qa\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Holiday Shopping: New Canaan Music [Q&A]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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[This is the first installment of our annual guide to local shopping. Please note the <\/span><\/i>Holiday Stroll<\/span><\/i><\/a> will be held this Friday and Saturday.]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

New Canaan Music<\/b><\/a>, located at 90 Main St., offers not only instruments for rental and purchase, but also lessons for all levels. We stopped in to talk to owner<\/span> Phil Williams<\/b> and store manager <\/span>Gaby Beecher<\/b> about what\u2019s on offer for this holiday season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a transcription of our interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

New Canaanite: It\u2019s early, but how are things going at the start of the holiday shopping so far?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Guitar from Bourgeois Guitars in Lewiston, Maine. Handcrafted, high-quality, low-volume guitar maker. New Canaan Music just started carrying them and is the only authorized dealer in the state of Connecticut. The guitar is similar to a Martin but higher-level quality of wood and construction. Priced at $61.99. Credit: Michael Dinan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Phil Williams: <\/b>There seems to be a lot of traffic in town. We had a busy black Friday, busy Saturday. That\u2019s a good, encouraging sign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had some changes to the parking on South and Elm. Do you see any effect from that here on Main?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Phil Williams: <\/b>Not so much. I will say that, in terms of paying for parking, people in 2025 don\u2019t need another reason to not shop in town. But I haven\u2019t seen any direct effects of that here at the shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where do your visitors park?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Phil Williams: <\/b>Wherever they can. We recommend people go to Locust Lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What would you say to someone who is learning about your store for the first time?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A new Epiphone Tribute Series SG guitar. It has the look and feel of a classic SG by Gibson, but for a fraction of the price. It\u2019s great for a beginner that can move up to an intermediate-level guitar. It\u2019s a brand that Gibson took on for its lower-price point guitar. Priced at $349. Credit: Michael Dinan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Phil Williams: <\/b>I think lessons are the most important thing they should know. We offer very flexible lesson packages. We\u2019ve got our seven lesson studios going. Really high-level instructors. I don\u2019t think we get enough word out about the level of teaching, from beginner to expert level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gaby Beecher: <\/b>One of the things to also highlight, especially about our store is that in the musical instrument world, most of what you see here is MAP [Minimum Advertised Price] protected\u2014meaning, it\u2019s not going to cost any different to buy this online or at a big box store, but we\u2019ll load it into your car, we\u2019ll help you know how to use it, answer questions on how to use it and get you. To be an authorized dealer, they protect their pricing. So if you look up a Yamaha FS800\u2014very popular guitar\u2014you\u2019re not going to find a new one at another shop for less. The difference with us is we inspect everything that comes in here, make sure everything\u2019s perfect. We see guitars coming in here in January that have all these issues. We go over every instrument that we sell before we put them out on the floor, and we\u2019ll reject stuff and send it back to the manufacturer if we need to. It\u2019s not just coming off a shelf and getting shipped to somebody. I think sometimes you hear people talk about the \u2018New Canaan tax.\u2019 People think it\u2019s more expensive to shop in New Canaan than to shop elsewhere, and they refer to it as the \u2018New Canaan tax,\u2019 but I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s actually true. I think most of the retailers in town work super hard to win the business of the community, and I think that\u2019s maybe not a fair assessment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Alesis Recital Pro digital piano, with 88 weighted keys. Good for adults and children. Priced at $399.99. Credit: Michael Dinan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What do you have planned for the <\/b>Holiday Stroll<\/b><\/a>?<\/b><\/p>\n

Phil Williams: <\/b>For the Stroll, we have an Open House, food and drink for people who want to come in out of the cold and see what we have for this holiday season. The New Canaan Music Orchestra will be performing at 5:30 p.m. on the mainstage [at South and Elm]. It\u2019s always a good time with our instructors playing and getting the town into a cheery mood.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source newcanaanite.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This is the first installment of our annual guide to local shopping. Please note the Holiday Stroll will be held this Friday and Saturday.] New Canaan Music, located at 90 Main St., offers not only instruments for rental and purchase, but also lessons for all levels. We stopped in to talk to owner Phil Williams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2183792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2183791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Local-Holiday-Shopping-New-Canaan-Music-QA.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2183791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2183793,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183791\/revisions\/2183793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2183792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2183791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2183791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2183791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}