For this installment in our local holiday shopping series, we talk to Phil Williams, owner of New Canaan Music at 90 Main St.
Here’s a transcription of our conversation.
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New Canaanite: How are things going so far for the holiday shopping season?
Gibson guitars, starting at $1,499. Gibson marks the birth of solid-body guitars. They made acoustic guitars since the 1800s, much like Martin. New Canaan has always been a Martin dealer, and has Gibson now, too, which offers a popular line of electric guitars, the Les Paul being the most well known. Credit: Michael Dinan
Phil Williams: We kicked things off this season, symbolically and in reality, with the Holiday Stroll on Friday night and Saturday. It really seems to be picking up in earnest. That’s a defining marker. ‘Cyber Week’ comes before that, but now that’s behind us, we’re ready and it’s happening.
What are people most interested in? What are some of your best sellers?
I would say guitars, electronics. Drums, electronic drums in particular. Lessons—people are getting lessons for their kids. It’s a nice gift. Someone gets to try out something new, see if they like it. It’s a unique gift because learning an instrument is something that a person can build within themselves.
Alesis Nitro Pro drum set, $499. It has more sounds than other kits, all digitally sampled. There’s a line for music-reading to play along with, and for kids to learn on and grow with. The drums are “velocity-sensitive” so they play louder the harder they’re hit. New Canaan Music also has the Alesis Nitro Max basic set. Credit: Michael Dinan
A lot of towns don’t have a store like this. Talk about your relationship with the public schools, for example. I know you have a lot of kids doing lessons and getting rentals here.
The public schools have a great music program. But there’s only so much a teacher can do with a classroom full of 20 kids. So to have one-on-one attention, a lot of kids come here, to supplement what they need to do and develop more as musicians.
For people who are new to town and haven’t had a chance to step in here, how do you describe your shop? What do you tell people about it?
We try to be warm, welcoming, and make a good presentation of New Canaan to what we think a store should be.
Alto’s Busker speaker ($349) has two discreet input channels and a mixer in between. It can play Bluetooth music and is rechargeable up to about 20 hours. Credit: Michael Dinan
You mentioned the Stroll. We’ve got the holiday lights up. We’ve got the garlands on the lampposts. What’s it like being part of the holiday shopping season in downtown New Canaan for these weeks?
It’s great to be a part of it. Just being a part of the scene. We’ve got our lampposts right out front, we try to contribute to the town as much as we can. And we try to be here for our customers, people from near and far alike.