MI Spy

We could all use a little shot in the arm now and then — these days especially! As of this writing, your MI Spy has received both doses of my two-dose vaccine, and now that I’ve got that good stuff percolating through me, I’m feeling optimistic that we may be nearing the end of this pandemic. However, I still have to wait the requisite two weeks before the vaccine reaches full efficacy, so the Chief insisted I remain quarantined in the MI Spy Cave for this month’s mission. You know what that means: another virtual report!

Unfortunately, HQ has been reluctant to invest any of its operating budget in upgrading my at-home workspace, so the Wi-Fi and food options in the MI Spy Cave are nothing to write home about. But to make it up to me, the Chief gave me carte blanche to pick whichever region of the country that I want to cover. Given the band and orchestra

ONLINE IN UTAH: SEARCHING FOR B&O PRODUCTS

(B&O) theme of this issue, as well as the huge amount of basketball I’ve been watching while quarantined, I decided to take a cue from one of the NBA’s more musically themed teams, the Utah Jazz.

So for this mission, I will be focusing my attention on four Utah-area MI stores and their selection of B&O instruments, the weapon of choice for many of the all-time greatest jazz musicians. I’ll be determining which of these stores’ websites offer the best online shopping experience as well as the best B&O offerings. And fortunately, the virtual nature of this visit will allow me to cover the entire state of Utah in a single trip without leaving my MI Spy Cave, bouncing around from town to town like a skilled jazz master jumping from note to note. Just call me the armchair Louis Armstrong.

Summerhays Music Layton 547 N. Main St. Layton, UT 84041 summerhaysmusic.com

I started off near Salt Lake City with a well-known retailer who is often on NAMM’s Top 100 list of best retailers, Summerhays Music in Layton (the retailer also has a location in Murray). If you want a B&O instrument, you found the right place. Summerhays offers a great selection in brass, which was easily found in the upper-left corner of its website: euphoniums, flugelhorns, tubas, French horns, trombones and trumpets. Some of these instruments were further sorted into selections of intermediate, professional and student models.

I decided to click on euphoniums, because it is not an instrument that is talked about much in the pages of this magazine, although perhaps it should be. Given the rarified nature of this particular instrument, I expected there one euphonium for sale. To my surprise, there were two, both made by Yamaha, with the YEP-321S offered at a sales price of $2,745.99 and the YEP-642TSII for $7,399.99. I also saw two flugelhorns for sale. Other brass offerings varied, including one student tuba, two bass trombones, three intermediate trumpets and more.

I then switched to the brasswind section of the website, and the offerings were bountiful. Bassoons, clarinets, flutes, oboes, piccolos and saxophones are all available, many in intermediate, professional and student models. I clicked on another instrument not discussed often in the pages of this magazine: piccolos. I found three intermediate piccolos for sale, one professional piccolo and three student piccolos. Then, I checked out the saxophones, an instrument I tried to learn how to play but failed miserably at when I was young. For sale were 11 alto saxes, one baritone sax, one soprano sax and nine tenor saxophones. And I didn’t even mention the plethora of harps Summerhays Music also has on offer. This was easily one of the better selections of B&O products I have seen recently.

As for the Summerhays website itself, it is not flashy, but it has a clean, white background with an excellent use of store photos and photos of students with instruments. The first thing I came across on the website near the top was a PayPal Credit logo with the words, “No Interest if Paid in Full in Six Months on Purchases of $99+.” Below this was a promo for “Employee Pricing Sales Events,” and below that was a link to rent instruments online. When you click on this link, it offers an excellent question-andanswer section regarding questions parents may have on school instruments, including “What if my child doesn’t stay in band?” and “What if the instrument breaks or is stolen?”

Clearly, Summerhays has been successful since 1936 for a reason. Many reasons, in fact.

Riverton Music Locations in Sandy, West Jordan, Clearfield and Kaysville, UT rivertonmusic.com

If I was conducting this mission in person, I would need to choose among Riverton Music’s four different Utah locations, but that is no problem this go around. I can visit all of them — virtually, of course.

In the middle of the website’s homepage, Riverton offers separate links for band and orchestra products. I first clicked on the “Band” tab and found 55 products — very impressive indeed. The selection was not organized into individual instruments like on Summerhays’ website, but you could filter your results by plugging in the name of the instrument you desire. I decided not to do so, since I wanted to see the entire selection instead. On offer were clarinets, flutes, trombones, trumpets, piccolos, saxophones, oboes, French horns and yes, a euphonium, from several manufacturers including Gemeinhardt, Pearl, Buffet and Jupiter.

I moved my cursor over to the “Orchestra” tab and found 49 products waiting for me there. Like Summerhays, Riverton has an impressive selection, with violins, cellos and violas available, from companies including Aragona, Archer, Knilling and more. Again, you can filter the results by the type of instrument, by manufacturer and even price range if you wish. I found all of these to be cool features.

After looking at the instruments themselves, I clicked back to the homepage. It also had a clean look. The Riverton website featured more of a “traditional” look than Summerhays, however. It also lacked the eye-catching photos of the in-store experience that Summerhays offered, instead opting for more generic instrument photos, as well as some smaller images of the retailer’s four storefronts.

One thing you cannot dispute is the success Riverton has had. In the middle of the website was a blurb stating that Riverton is “Celebrating 50 years of making music.” However the blurb wasn’t very eye-catching for such a praiseworthy achievement; it was rendered in small, subtle font. If this was my store, I would want this anniversary to be noted at the top of the website where it will stand out more, with bold text and an attention-grabbing graphic. Minor quibbles aside, staying open for 50 years is a tremendous accomplishment, and I congratulate Riverton on all of its success.

Bert Murdock Music 981 North 1200 W. Orem, UT 84057 bertmurdockmusic.com

About 45 miles south of Salt Lake City is Orem, Utah, where Bert Murdock Music is located. Its website also has a clean white background, but with red and black splashed throughout. To the upper left of the page, I moused over to the “Band” tab and discovered dropdowns for woodwinds, brasswinds and accessories. Woodwinds appeared first, so I started there. There were pages for flutes, piccolos, oboes/bassoons, clarinets and saxophones. I clicked the flutes link, and the site provided separate links for student, intermediate and professional-level instruments. I clicked oboes/bassoons, and I found four products for sale: three oboes and one bassoon, from Jupiter and Fox. (continued on page 44)