Staff is very friendly and has tons of knowledge. Prices are amazing and my family buys our instruments from here and theyre built to last. Has everything you need, and tge staff will size the instrument for you.
EDIT: I have long since paid off the beginner instruments that my children purchased from this location. Still, years later, every employee bends over backwards to answer questions and offer guidance. When I need to work within a budget or I simply have a question that won’t result in me spending any money, they remain just as eager to please. I honestly feel like these guys work for the love of the music more than the need of the paycheck.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: These guys are all well versed in something to do with music. They each have different areas of expertise so they can’t all answer any question that you put to them, but the answer will be found. You can rent, buy, or rent-to-own your instrument here. I have yet to go to them for something that one of my kids needed and not be able to get it, though one specific type of mute, they had to order.
Always super nice and helpful!
I’m sure the establishment is a very nice one, I’ve heard great things. The parking lot, however, is a complete cluster.
Knowledgeable and very friendly employees! They do things right that shows how much they really care for their instruments. I love the whole rental package they provide to students to help them learn how to care for their instruments too. Great quality selections of Eastman and Yamaha viols. I highly recommend this place, they have the best customer service I’ve ever experienced in Alaska!!!
Best place ever!
Limited selection. Business seemingly on its last legs.
Too expensive
I’m not sure what is going on with pricing at this store. I stopped through the shop hoping to pick up a Yamaha FG800 acoustic guitar. They had the guitar in stock, but for some reason the price on it was $299.99 vs other places that sell them for $199.99. I’m all for supporting small local businesses, but I’m not going to pay 50% more than I need to. Luckily the Horn Doctor over on Ingra had the guitar for $199.99 and much more engaging staff to help me out.
I am regular here as I have bought and traded guitars for at least 3 years at this place. The people working are wonderful however they never remember me though. lol
They were helpful an knowledgeable very pleasant n welcoming felt comfortable
Surprisingly great selection of ukuleles. Went in without knowing anything about the store and found a massive trove of my favorite instrument. Sales people were very friendly and helpful…not pushy at all. Had a great experience and will be back when I’m back in town and ready to make a purchase.
Prices seemed reasonable, too.
We went in to rent a PA system for our wedding. They were really nice and helpful and they worked with us on our rental since we have to transport it to the venue a day early.
knowledgeable staff. amazing array of musical instruments
I turned in my guitar for been calibrated a month ago and they didn’t work on it. I never received a call from them. I asked for my refund.
Terrible customer service. Unfriendly staff. Kind of a bummer. Good pedal selection though.
I’ve been a customer for years and was sold a broken used guitar that the salesman later told me that they knew was broken. Forget these guys, at least Guitar Center won’t scam you.
4. Alaska Music & Sound
Address: 1000 Ingra St, Anchorage, AK 99501 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Alaska Music and Sound us the place to go for sheet music, instruments, reeds, strings, drumsticks and a nice range of fun items for musicians (think stickers, music-themed earrings, etc.). We rent our daughter’s instrument here, and she takes a weekly lesson at the shop, too. We’re happy with the service in the shop and the consistent level of professionalism from her teacher. Our daughter has attended a master class here, too, with professional musicians. In short, whether you’re an established musician, someone who’d like to rent an instrument and get started, or a parent wanting to support a child just getting started in music, Alaska Music and Sound is a great resource!
Cool local music store.
Veey helpful and informative.
Sells well made oboe reeds. Would definitely recommend buying oboe reeds here
Really friendly and helpful staff
Good service.
5. Petr’s Violin Shop & Guitar Central
Address: 1408 Hyder St Unit B, Anchorage, AK 99501 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Courteous,knowledgeable and friendly staff. Very good selection of quality instruments. These folks are exceptional.
Very friendly staff
Love the service! Bought my guitar and violin here~
Was very happy they restrung a violin on the spot for the price of the string.
They had small selection of bass’ but, their rosin and other essentials are just way to expensive and cost $80 dollars, not including the instrument.. {Cloth, tuner, stand end stop}
They have no Rickenbacker so they can’t have 5 stars. Otherwise an excellent selection& prices but I felt like the sales person was rather hipster / superior. Though I would love to go back and browse some more I felt like I was a freeloader for not immediately dropping +$500 on an instrument. So shoot me. My philosophy is that browsers become buyers, but I am apparently wrong. I got a good recommendation from them for a tech to fix my ailing bass amp, so my trip there did actually yield commercial transactions, in the end. Good prices, good inventory, good community, goodish staff.
Nice selection of stringed instruments.
Young woman at front counter helpful, smiled, and made eye contact.
Guitar room guy not engaging or helpful, more interested in his phone than engaging with me.
Every guitar has a “do not handle” sign with a sign that there is a 5 minute limit on handling a guitar. No place to sit and try an instrument.
Other staff did not acknowledge me at all.
I was the only customer at the time.
I would maybe go back if I needed something but the customer service was absent at the time of my visit.
the guitar store / repair shop side of the business should be avoided, the guitar tech talks like he knows what he’s doing but doesnt always tell you the truth,
Petr is taking advantage of being one of the few violin shops in town. He is charging $63.00 for a pair of d’addario helicore full size violin strings. You can find them online anywhere from $33.00- $38.00. I am all about keeping a small business alive and don’t mind an up charge to do so but come on. The strings don’t even come in the original packaging so he is obviously getting them in bulk. Give us a chance to support you Petr’s Violin Shop.
6. Guitar Center
Address: 2880 Seward Hwy, Anchorage, AK 99503 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Went there to check out the guitars and left with a smile on my face. Very down to earth and nice employees. Awesome selection of guitars and amps to look through and buy. Amazing time.
Service is excellent. Variety of style of instruments is commendable. I’m a drummer, so I was pleasantly surprised see they had a quaint drummer room with cymbals lining the walls and snares on the windowsill. Nearly any instrument you see can be played in the store, including the drums (they have electronic ones outside the drum room and two acoustic ones inside, but this is subject to change as these could be sold).
Cool people great place to chat with others who dabble in sound and I’m happy to be a customer. Thank you
I have a single piece of advice for this place. I play the drums. So I will frequent this location to see what new snare drums they pick up. There were many times where I would try out a snare, and it would be tuned poorly, or barely tuned at all. (I’m not referring to personal preference tuning, but simply tightening a head on a snare) Other than that, the staff is educated and are very helpful.
Anything and everything you need for a guitar or anything instrumental books music everything you won’t stop shop
The staff were nice and they helped me out but they sold me a used Akai mpk mini 3 special addition I was so focused on getting home to play it untill I realized it was open and it didn’t come with a USB
Amazon of music. 10 day return policy was a surprisingly short one. Had to return a monitor next day because it never worked out of the box. But cheap is cheap I guess.
The music industry’s Walmart
I’m a long time customer of GC. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars with this company. I will never give them another dollar as long as I live. They have lost my business permanently. They’re ripoff artists. Stay away!
7. Anchorage Guitar Central
Address: 1410 Hyder St unit a, Anchorage, AK 99501 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Great knowlegable staff, beautiful guitars and instruments. A house of worship for the musically inclined.
I stopped in just to get a few guitar picks. I’m new to guitar so I was looking through the books to find something to help me learn. I talked to Will and he was excellent and obviously knew what he was doing. I ended up getting the picks, a book of chords, and he was nice enough to write down a couple of youtuber names for me to watch and learn. I’ve been to shops where you’re looked down on because you’re not an expert. This IS NOT one of those places. And, oh my gosh! The guitar eye candy there was awesome! One day I’ll upgrade to a “nice” guitar and these people will be the ones to sell it to me.
Great place with some of the most unique guitars I’ve ever seen in a store! A definite stop for any guitar player!
DO NOT trust these guys. I paid $250. For a small guitar for my son to learn to play. After getting home and put new strings on it they sold me it exposed a huge crack at the box and neck. I called them she said it was used so as is…expensive lesson!
NEVER AGAIN GUITAR CENTER.
8. John Osnes Violins
Address: 8900 Jupiter Dr, Anchorage, AK 99507 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
John is very experienced and he made my daughter’s lovely cello. He has very reasonable prices. He just rehaired my daughter’s cello bow and did a fantastic job. He’s threatening to retire. Hope he holds off a bit. We would really miss him.
I have bought and sold probably 25 instruments at John’s shop over the past 25 years, and give it the highest recommendation. John has been entrusted to work on some of the most expensive instruments in Alaska, and he’s just as considerate of the cheapest student models. He takes pleasure in giving expert and candid guidance to players of every style and ability level, and his pricing and trade-in policies are very fair. A pleasure to do business with.
This place is in a residential home. Nice variety of instruments to choose from. Quality craftsmanship, I love his violas and cellos!
9. Music & Arts
Address: 4623 Old Seward Hwy, Anchorage, AK 99503 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Hayden Sterling fixed my wifes brothers guitar for free of charge after he told me they were no longer doing consignments as a way of showing good faith. I teach with this guitar every day and it plays like a dream.
If you look at the staff, the same year round staff members are workibg at the store and fI respected them highly before the buyout and I respect them highly now.
Hayden has time and time again done extra things for my family and me as a musician and teacher in the community.
I look at it like this. The Music and Arts store is provided a service that is not another video game store or screen time outlet for kids. They are bringing more music instruments to this state and they are doing things differently. No business that takes over another business does things the same way.
So, if the previous customer service by the same people was awesome, it will continue to be awesome. That beats the hell out of another amazon sellibg first act guitars to sixth graders. The community needs this store and the employees there are going to keep the same level of customer service going.
There will be some differences. I say judge your store employees by the content of their character and allow them the chance to either earn your business or decide to go elsewhere. No need to trash the employees who are now getting healthcare options that didnt have that before.
We are a long time client of the Music Man. Many students, many instruments, music lessons, etc. About 6 months ago I went to inquire about upgrading my daughters saxophone through their trade up program. They offered to buy back the entry level saxophone we purchased from MM and put that credit towards the purchase of the (much more expensive) next level of sax. I went in with my daughter on Friday to complete this task, old saxophone in hand right from the get go. She tried the new sax, loved it, and we went to the register. They then let me know they no longer offered a trade up program for students who purchased their instruments through MM due to new ownership. They also no longer offer a rent to own program. I was surprised they weren’t honoring any of the prior agreements or business plans that MM had offered, which were incredible for students wanting to give an instrument a try. The staff at M&A did “call the owner” who confirmed they were not honoring any former programs offered by the MM, no buyback, no credit towards new instruments, trade ins, etc. After a very frustrating visit, I ended up purchasing the new sax outright, and left with the entry level sax as well. But the business model of Music and Arts is not one that i’ll continue to visit, which is a shame because we really loved the Music Man. I will say Hayden was fabulous to work with at Music and Arts and very empathetic about parents, like myself, who were long time clients of the MM. M&A has lost my future business, we’ll be going to the Horn Doctor from here on out.
10. Motion Music and Arts
Address: 4105 E Turnagain Blvd, Anchorage, AK 99517 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Micah absolutely knocked it out of the park with being knowledgeable and patient working with my son. His studio is fantastic to learn from and you can tell Micah has a true passion for music and teaching. I enjoyed watching my son progress and enjoying learning the drums. I highly recommend using Micah as an instructor and hope to continue lessons again in the fall.
Micah Rawalt has been teaching me drums for about a year now and he’s still showing me new things every week. Without his lessons I would not have excelled in drumming nearly as fast or as well. He has made everything fun to learn and makes it all exciting. I would 100% recommend him to anyone who is looking for drum lessons or has a kid looking for some.
In the short amount of time I’ve been with Micah (4 months) I have learned more than I would have on my own. Very welcoming and patient with his instruction and his teaching structure is a very engaging and fun learning experience!
11. Latinos Innovations
Address: 4233 Mountain View Dr, Anchorage, AK 99508 , Anchorage Municipality , Alaska , United States
Awesome shop. Has to be the best vynil selection in Alaska. Staff is awesome! I hate walking into a store and instantly being bombarded by sales pitches. Won’t happen here. I can thumb through records for hours here if I want and if I have a question or don’t have hours to search I can ask and have answers on the spot. The store is on the small side, however you will get lost in there searching the wide variety of records while listening to the dope tunes that are always spinning. I think they recently hired some new dude… Walter. Walter is a young buck but I like him.
Awesome people to deal with. will do everything they can to help you find what you are looking for
So old school classic
Ran by the owner. Very knowledgeable.
Duuuuuuuuuull. And unhelpful. Good for Anchorage, I guess.
