Where to find the best music shops in Calumet Park? Top-20 options

I’ve always had a great experience dealing with Midlothian Music. Whether it be purchasing instruments or taking lessons the staff has always been professional and treated me with respect.

Friendly , knowledgeable staff….beautiful layout of instruments….great vibe……oh yea, and best of all…family owned

These guys are great to work with. The Gibson Les Paul I received was much nicer than pictured or described!! They worked with me on the price/shipping and were right on it with email updates. Lightning fast shipping! Overall excellent experience! Thanks again Midlothian Music!

I love all the products but at times the service was bad, other visits there were good service. Thanks!

Short Version: Came in to try out guitars just like any normal, decent person would but ended up being treated like a careless kid

Every time I’ve visited Midlothian Music I’ve had wonderful experiences, but my last visit left me disappointed.

I came in to see how a few of their guitars compare to my guitar that I already own (which I brought in with me.) The associate I approached was very kind and asked a few questions to make sure he was grabbing exactly what I was looking for from the back. He brought a guitar out and tuned it for me.

I thanked him and asked him if I could have a guitar stand to place next the amp so that I could swap between my own and the one he brought me.

He told me he could just hold onto mine while I played the new one. I thought of that as being a strange solution, but I haven’t been to a lot of music shops and figured it was normal or something. I appreciated it.

I was a little bit uncomfortable with how he stood there the whole time watching me as I played (I was playing for a decent amount of time) but I just took it as him doing me a kindness, standing by in case I needed help. But then I realized he was watching me to make sure I didn’t scratch or damage the guitar.

I have a bag that I wear across my shoulder that sits at my waist, and he asked me if I could make sure that the zipper doesn’t scratch it. Which is understandable, I understand how guitar shops are about zippers. I look over at my hip and see that it’s a good distance away, nod and tell him “I gotcha.” afterwards I could still tell he was uneasy with how I was handling the guitar which I feel was very normally and with respect.

He then asks me “oh, could you make sure you don’t pick too hard?” which is a question I’ve never been asked in any guitar store I’ve visited. I didn’t really know what to say so I just looked at him and then he asked me to watch out for my zipper again. At this point my thoughts of “Oh, he’s standing by to help me” turned to thoughts of “Oh, he was watching me this whole time to make sure I don’t tear anything up”

At that point I (regretfully) respond sarcastically and ask “Would you like to just move my bag for me? Would you also like to pick the guitar for me as well?”

We begin to explain to each other where we were both coming from with our statements. In trying to get my point across that I’ve never been watched so closely or felt like I was made out to be such an untrustworthy individual nor watched the whole time in any other music shop I’ve visited, I became very frustrated and the tone of my voice took a similar turn.

A manager comes over and asks what’s going on. I apologize for my tone and as I attempt to explain what happened and how I felt I was treated, he interrupts me and explains to me the reason behind the employee’s actions. He then asks what he can do for me and how the guitar played.

As I tried to continue my explanation two more times, I was interrupted two more times and was told by the manager that the employee was just trying to stand by and give me good business which is rare these days and that he didn’t mean it that way.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the employee had any malicious intent directed towards me at all, he apologized to me multiple times. It’s just that the following things left a bad taste in my mouth:

– He apologized to me which I really appreciate, but immediately afterwards he would go on to tell me why he treated me the way that he did, which was to ensure the guitar stays in good condition

– I understood that aspect of what he was saying, keeping the merchandise in perfect condition. I was just unhappy with the way he went about it

– When I tried to explain this to the manager, I felt like he wasn’t willing to see my side, especially with how I was interrupted midway twice while trying to explain my issue to both of them.

The owner of the shop spoke to me very rudely and insisted that I was trying to sell my instrument at “retail” price, even though I obviously researched beforehand… why would I try to sell a used instrument at retail price? He refused to give me his best offer or even look at my instrument. Wouldn’t recommend this place at all. Save your time

Music store with strict rules, can’t play anything without 10 min max rule, and I couldn’t even play through an amp they had on the floor. The associate plug me into some floor monitor to hear what the guitar sounded like. Felt uncomfortable in the store the entire time. Not sure who this store is designed for but surely not me.

I have my 11 year old daughter taking lessons and the staff is laid back and family friendly. I have played guitar for years and her teacher has made much progress over 6 months. My daughter enjoys learning here more than listening to her dad.
Rossi is a local business that services many instruments and from what I see you could take advanced lessons as an adult as well. Next time my daughter cant make her lesson I will take the spot and learn some actual music theory.

Great prices and awesome people!

great customer service. I purchased music instruments.

SUZAN M.O’Rourke wrote on 1/19/2019 I visited Rossi’s in the Fall of 2018 and looked at a variety of instruments but seems to have a shared phone number with Little Company of Mary Hospital aproximately 1 or 1.5 miles east on 95th street. Unfortunate use of a beautifil web site The store offers sheet music and new snd used rental /purchase of instruments.

I visited this place for sheet music. The songs I wanted were found online and promptly printed for my purchase.

My son was taking lessons and love it! I paid for his classes in advance and was told that I didn’t and was expected to repay for my son to continue lessons. Advice if you decide to use their service take your own calender and make sure a teacher sign off the day he gave lessons. This will help you keep up for when the teacher cancels for the days you paid for.

Bad customer service, dude with long hair gave me attitude and had a overall bad vibe

This place claims to offer guitar repairs. So i brought in a Gibson LP Custom that simply needed to be re-wired. The pickups were already installed all that was needed was to wire it up and solder it all together. A nice clean pallet to work with.

3 weeks in, I call and was told, We are waiting on parts! Ok? So i decided to buy a wiring kit offline for 100.00 and drop it off. Took me 1 day to get the parts, Took them 3 weeks and they were still waiting for wires and volume pots? Really?

So they had all brand new parts, wires, etc that i purchased myself. Once again, A nice clean slate to work with, Everything was brand new and clean, So wiring and soldering should have went smooth and looked good.

Another week later, I call and ask if its ready, Yeah! Come get it! So i guess they dont call people when instruments are ready for pickup?

I pick it up and bring it home, Plug it in and hear the worst noise ever.. The output of the pickups was all wrong. I have never heard a guitar sound this bad. I look inside and was shocked at the job!! Wires twisted together just hanging there. Soldering burnt thru the brand new pots! This was HORRIBLE!

I call him about it and he said, Oh well i plugged it in and the pickups had sound? Your kidding me right?

I could have brought it back for him to “fix” but after looking at what he did to a brand new wiring kit, Its best to keep guitars far far away from this guy. PLEASE if you have a guitar that is halfway decent and needs a setup, pickup swap or anything that requires a brain, Please take it elsewhere! This place is far from professional.

We moved to Orland Park in 2017 and I was looking for a music school for my two daughters and after looking at a few schools, I finally decided on House of Music and I am very happy I found this music school. Both my daughters like their instructors.

Excellent people to work with! I bought a drum set, guitar, amp head and speaker cab. All great deals.

Really awesome crew here that love what they teach…music. My 8 year old is in drums with Rob and he is great with my kid and the other kids I see him with. So much better than Midlothian music.

Staff’s kind n’ “mentorly” (that’s a word, right?). They mostly sell guitars, but I have seen a drum set, an accordion, and a few keyboards there too. Not very traditional in their approach to teaching instruments, they don’t really go over music theory. If you’re looking for a laid back approach to learning guitar, drums, etc, you’ve got a good chance here.

I stopped by this shop recently to inquire about music lessons for my 7 year old son. I was greeted by the owner who had his face mask dangling half off of his face. You would think that during a global pandemic the owner would take more care in making sure the students in his care are safe, this guy can’t even wear a mask correctly. Also, all the instruments they had for sale looked cheap.

Waste of time.

My son has been learning piano with them for almost a year. Their teachers are also unstable. The working teacher also has a bad attitude. It’s a very bad experience!

Delisiosas tortas i jugos
Probe la d Maradona
M

Tienen variedad

Grate verity of instruments and items. Come here all the time for my guitar strings.

Excellent service

Great even with PANDEMIC situation❤️ ‼️

Variedad de instrumentos

Small accordion 14 white keys $2400.00 dollars too expensive + tax

Worst customers service ever dont take any intruments to repair there. They say they will call you to let youbknow how the process is they never do. The wosrt store to buy intruments.

Discovered this store two years ago. Have taken my bass for set ups and have taken my friends to check out their nice selection in bass amps. Today I purchased a beautiful upright bass. Always great, friendly, honest service and product. I’m a happy customer.

Very clean an friendly

Good luck

Nice and helpful staff, but they require you to give them your phone number to make a purchase. No thanks. Took my business elsewhere.

I have had great success with Kagan.& Gaines..
Since my daughter started Violin back in 2006
They were able to help me with a 1/2 size , a 3/4 violin and now my daughter is in a full size French made violin.
Excellent service and knowledge of violins.
They have helped my daughter become the great young violinist she is, as this is where it all started for my Alexis.
Having a great selection of violins to choose from.

45 dollars for an on the spot (30 min) electric guitar restring, minus the price for the strings, is a little steep, folks. I appreciate the good work, but I can get the same treatment for a lot less at A Sound Education off Ogden.

I hate to agree with the user below who complained of a dishonest experience, but we are going through the same. I’ve read all of the other 5 star reviews and notice a pattern: it seems that for violin and stringed instruments, this is a great place. For renting brass/woodwind instruments via their monopoly with the school districts, they are subpar and dishonest. We should have just purchase a used instrument which would have resulted in us obtaining a superior instrument at, I am not exaggerating, 1/4 the total cost. We just had to call them to stop processing our credit card when we noticed we had been paying an abnormally long time on my daughter’s VERY USED, VERY DENTED saxophone (4 years!). We were “reassured” that, coincidentally, they were just going to call us as well as our payments happened to be completed. Yet they have no records of all the payments that we made, and are asking us to provide payment records going back to 2017 to “prove” how much we have paid in total. Luckily for us, we can easily provide them as they have all been made on the same credit card for years. We are also disputing the amount owed as our daughter’s original “nicer” model saxophone broke, was taken in for repairs, and she was given a loaner, student-model, older and dented sax. Her other one was never repaired and instead she’s just had this one forever. We were told at the time it would be “worked out.” Now they want us to pay the same amount as they were going to charge for the initial instrument to keep this replacement instrument permanently, as they also claim to have NO record that any switch was ever made or that the original saxophone was ever brought in for repairs. Typically, I endeavor to support neighborhood shops, but not when their record keeping is straight out of Mayberry. This is taking a lot of our time and energy to sort out, and we’ve ultimately laid out over $2300 to own an instrument that I have found at multiple music stores online for around $600 and under. We understand that renting the own is typically more expensive, but this feels like being swindled in every way. Extremely disappointed. My husband has been playing music for over 40 years – he also used to play saxophone – and his mother is a professional classical musician. He is used to dealing with all sorts of music shops and has never had an experience like this one.

Awesome shop.

My kids and I play 3 different instruments and Flatts and Sharpe’s instructors are some of the best in Chicago. Lots of sheet music, too!

These folks are dedicated to the community and to providing quality music education along with everything else.

Very. Nice experience, treated very nice, looking forward in going back too the Dollar Tree.

It’s always a great experience at the Dollar Tree, very clean store everything organized and great customer service

The staff was friendly and helpful.

I always enjoy shopping at this clean well stocked store. The staff is nice and helpful and ring up your items acquately and fast.

Always have what I need.

Nice clean store

I must say I went in there to get a few items that I needed The sale associate name Wendy was very races I will never again go there she was very unprofessional horrible customer service

You better watch the dates on. the food items. I bought some cookies got home to find out they were 3-4 months outdated. So i went back to exchange them and the cashier nearly lost her whole mind. ” we don’t exchange food” I told her well you shouldn’t put old food on the shelf. She said” I don’t look at the dates I just put them on the shelf” And said it extremely nasty!! Watch Your DATES ON YOUR FOOD

They are always out of everything.

Really good store. I’m a student here and the teachers here are awesome!

My favorite music store

The best instructors and the nicest staff.

My daughter says her Violin instructor is very nice:)
It’s better to walk there, if you’re local; no parking 4 to 6pm….
There’s a pleasant, vintage vibe.

Friendly staff. Fun little old school music shop. Sheet music selection kinda light. Look forward to going back, though. They offer music lessons, too.

Took my les paul in for a set-up, and it was no longer playable when they were finished. Would not recommend.

I bought a couple things and had a setup done here last year. Their selection isn’t great and I needed to re-do the setup after I got it home. It wasn’t *bad*, but nothing was really done. Also, one of my strings broke in the process and they only replaced that one string.

When I called to ask about it because it had a different tone than the rest, they assured me it was just because it was new and that they used the exact same strings. (The bass was also brand new so that didn’t make a lot of sense, but I also didn’t know much about strings at the time so I took their word for it.

I just took my strings off for the first time since then and noticed the string that was replaced had a different color end than it should. (My bass has a string-thru body so it wasn’t apparent before.)

I don’t know why they lied to me about it, but definitely not ever going to go back there or recommend the place to anyone. Sad.

i couldn’t believe how nasty to me one of the women at this shop was. feel terrible for anyone that has to work around her cause wow! i would’ve come here again as well if not for her!

Friendly staff, convenient hours, and good inventory!

Great service and no pressure. They make sure you get the right instrument for you and your budget.

Friendly family owned, great service

Great deals

Austin Music Center is a great neighborhood music store. It’s like the
Old school ma&pa stores of years gone
by. It has all things musical rite n our
Neighborhood. U no convenience ha ha
And real friendly people 2 accommodate your needs,musically that is. Go check it
Out 4 urself, don’t just take my word 4 it.
Althought u could; my word is better than
Gold Pepople!!! just kiddin. The corner of
Austin&North Ave is where u’ll find this
jewel. Peace b wit y’all. Bye

Doug is a good guy. Not too many string choices, but if you call ahead he can order what you need. Best for elementary and grade school band stuy, but I am happy with my harmonica and ukelele from there.

Cheap instruments, overpriced in my opinion.

Great service. And an awesome selection. They didn’t have what I was looking for yet they still called around to try and find it. Awesome place. Definitely will be going back.

Words cannot describe the incredible service Axes Music has provided me for years. Not only have the incredible talented staff taught me how to play many instruments, they have carefully guided me into a career in music which I absolutely love. This business is absolutely incredible and each and every member of their staff is extremely talented, and very friendly. Overall Axes Music is the place to go for music lessons, instrument service, and professional recording.

Great place!

value pawn is a excellent place where you can find very good deals on merchandise plus the people are very friendly and very helpful….

They are always nice and professional when I go in no problems so far they treat you with respect the way clients sb treated.

They have great customer service and they’re very friendly they take care of the customer and the first day I went to the pawnshop I was very satisfied and they have very very customer great customer service and very friendly people I will go back and I will recommend people to go there they’re great

I don’t like living comments but it’s not everybody who are bad there , just ask for Scott he is the best.

The New Cash America store manager with the black and grey hair is rude and not helpful to customers……I miss the old Value Pawn at least the young crew there were respectful and NICE this store manager represents the team there…..I wouldn’t want to work for her

Terrible place DO NOT GO HERE. Products are half working, they low ball on items you pawn and Dont negotiate and the old man who I believe is their Manger is RUDE. I wanted to smack him when i was in there just don’t go here i pray he sees this review and has a problem. DO NOT GO TO THIS ESTABLISHMENT

Not the same as the old owners, system keep changing, and they don’t work with the loyal customers like they use to and they don’t try to help how a pawn shop suppose to. Will Not Be Returning for Any Purpose now Dont like the lady in there cuz she know we loyal and could’ve gave us what we usually get.

A definitely unique vibe with a nostalgic sense of reality. A most definite must

Ten years ago Tony and Music Evolution installed a projector in our church. We needed to have a new projector installed and Tony came out and was able to install the new projector quickly and very neatly. He also saved our church money on the install by using the same mount instead of charging us for a new one. We are very satisfied with the service and highly recommend his company if you need any work done.

Great service and install. Definitely will have Tony do all my work needed in the future. Was even nice enough to work on Sunday. Thanks Tony!

Tony and his crew have been servicing our audio video needs for almost ten years. He also wired our home with Ethernet allowing for the fastest most consistent. His work is always impeccable. They have installed 4 TVs at our current home.

One of the best music stores in the country. I wish I had spent more time there when I went. They have just about every guitar you could want.

Sick and very awesome place

Shout out Kenny for the help today! It was my first visit and I will definitely be back!

Theres rooms to test the guitars, amps, and pedals and it’s great!

Huge selection of guitars and basses. The drum shop is a bit small.

Well stocked. I like when staff gives me room to explore but it does feel like they go an extra step into not caring territory or prejudging what you can afford

A big company with a bad attitude, they own reverb too and these guys just puff there little chest and try and boss everyone around online as well as sell guitars for way more than they are worth. The place is full of stiff cats who think they are better than you. This is like the Guitar Center of Used gear. Awesome gear but bad service and respect. STAY AWAY

Really solid selection of instruments but the staff sort of sucks. Only Marc in the basement ever seems to be helpful and nice. Seems that because I’m young they don’t take me seriously when I want to check out instruments. I often get told to leave the demo room as soon as I enter so someone else can “look at something they may purchase” even though I have purchased instruments here. Also bought my Ric 4003 from here and asked to have flats put on and when the bass arrived the nut was never properly dressed and the strings were hanging on top of the nut instead of in the groove. Not worth the drive these days. I can go to Billy O’s in Griffith, IN and get great service and have my instruments set up the right way.

Wish title of store would have said guitars only

Great place to take guitar, drums or bass lessons! My Son’s been in 3 sessions here and has progressed immensely.

My 13 year-old son has been taking drum lessons at North Shore Music for 2 years. He’s also in the studio’s band camp which places him with other students to form a rock band. They perform in public around Wilmette. He absolutely loves it and so do we parents. Alejandro and his staff are terrific!

This is an awesome place to improve your skills in music. The owner really knows his stuff and the staff is always helpful when it comes to rescheduling lessons. Can’t recommend enough.

Helpful, knowledgeable, and fair.

Carl Becker is the kind of man you want to deal with. He is a world renowned violin maker, yet he is down to earth and concerned for each person who visits his shop. Carl and Tim worked above that which would be expected to help us get the right violin for my daughter. We are grateful for their efforts and expertise that reveal why people shop here. You ought to visit and see for yourself.
2 Years after we purchased our violin, I still have a great respect for Carl Becker and the instruments produced by him and those he has worked with. My daughter is complemented everywhere we go about the tone and quality of the instrument the crafted.

Came to Carl Becker & Son from out of town and was very impressed at their professionalism, kindness and quality of service. Customer service and communication exceeded my expectations for standard string instrument maintenance.

Caring customer service and great advice to find what is best when purchasing a string instrument.

Best little kept secret on the SouthEast side!
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh…….others will want to come

Best programs and coaches, I absolutely love this park and the activities offered

Ok cool

Be careful in the sand near the beach… someone id putting nails in the sand.

Nice beach & always get there early cause it does get crowded.

Exelente

Always a good view but scary even at daytime.

Muy sucio muchacho basura

Not Clean at all i stop going there too dangerous