Mountain View: Overview of the top 8 music shops

The Bay Area’s Best traditional music store

friendly staffs

Great experience

It’s a small music store with limited items, but the staff will be helpful with any problem you have.

Great place to get paper version of music books and get professional help on instruments and questions.

Very few guitars and most of them are Yamaha which do not typically have good sound.

Took my flute collection in for a possible tune up. Was told that all but one of the flutes were unplayable. Guess my looks or money weren’t what they accepted there. Took my ‘non playable’ flutes, and commenced to use them to busk, there in downtown Mtn View. Odd that they were declared unplayable, yet I was playing at least one of them not 30 minutes later. Care to explain West Valley Music staff ?

I love this store

Dope place dope people

My goodness! I have a great time every time I visit this shop! Friendly and knowledgeable staff! The kids who come in for music practice seem to always have a fun time! Definitely would recommend everyone to have music lessons here and also repairing your instruments.

We returned our violin after three months but they refused to give the deposit back to us 🙁

Bad quality violin!!!! We rented a 1/8 violin but wanted to cancel our 3-month contract the same day we rented due to violin quality issue (black paint all over my child’s fingers with strong chemical smells on the surface of the strings and the string board, never happened on her own violins we bought before).

But the Asian female staff there refused, we ended up paying over $90 without playing for a single day!! She was also angry that we have rented another violin from elsewhere without going to them first. But we are very disappointed with the quality and do not want to bother exchanging for another one. And she kept asking for my current address and also read aloud my address from my driver’s license as if to threaten me. Horrible experience!!

The female staff also refuse to give me information of the owner and insisted that she contact the owner directly and would not give me a call if the owner refused to give me back my deposit.

My daughter started taking violin lessons from the studio with teacher Sam since she just turned 6 years old. We tried different teachers and Sam is the most passionate and patient teacher with young kids. Highly recommended this talented teacher if your young kids want to pick up violin as a professional hobby!

Sam review

My son has been taking violin lessons with Sam since he turned 4 years old. He is now 11 and We have seen his progress shoot up ever since that first lesson he took with him. His commitment and dedication to violin has grown into a passion because of this amazing teacher. Sam has taught so much to my son and I can not be thankful enough to him. My son plays in an orchestra now and still have private lesson with Sam. My young daughter is also a violin player thanks to Sam. We love going watching them at Sam’s recital every season. If you want to enroll your kids or start playing violin this is the perfect place to go without any hesitation.

My son has been learning violin from Sam for 3 years, turning his interest into passion which is way beyond our expectation. Currently he is the concert master at his middle school’s advanced orchestra, externally he got accepted into the Golden State Youth Orchestra, California Youth Symphony, and San Jose Youth Symphony, plus receiving scholarship for a bunch of local honor string programs. He is also picking up viola recently, for Sam is teaching both violin and viola.
More than words, credits to Sam for my son’s progress and achievement, we are lucky to find such a talented music teacher, best fit!
Highly recommend Sam’s private violin lesson to young kids.

Great store for music lovers. Fair and friendly staff, polite and not stuffy at all.

My favourite luthiers in the Bay Area! Everyone is very friendly and genuinely passionate about string instruments. Patrick is very knowledgeable and takes a lot of time explaining what needs to be done to your instrument. I learned a lot just by chatting with him. I definitely trust him a lot with my violin!

I have gone for bow rehairs (which they are well known for), instrument adjustments, and also bought my last violin there. They have a good selection of violins for advanced players. They also have the best rental-to-credit policy that I could find.

friendly knowledgeable staff who graciously help beginning students on their way and expertly help experienced players get to the next level.

The cheapest violin was $500.

Never open on time.

Went in to enquire about violins for beginners. Person had a snooty attitude for asking for violins in the lower price range. Went to West Valley music where they were very helpful

The service is not same as before. The current stuffs I met don’t know violin, cannot even tune the violin. So they just help you to do the transaction paper work and hand in the violin. You won’t be able to compare different violins. Moreover, they just keep asking you to upgrading. They don’t know customer’s needs, only want the quick transaction. Very disappointed!

Nancy is a wonderful teacher. She comes to my home and taught my kids for over 5 years. I am glad my kids grow up with her around us. Highly recommend!

Nancy has been teaching my son piano for a few weeks now. He has grown so much in his skills. She teaches from the basics and up. He now knows how to read music and play with two hands because of her!

Nancy is a great teacher specially for young child. She come to my home for lessons. She has an excellent music credentials. Highly recommend

Excellent teachers and great management. Plenty of activities and recitals to keep kid engaged and enjoying learning music. My son and I are both learning singing here, and we both love it. Highly recommend it to both kids and adults who would like to learn music.

Good experience for kids with patience

My older son has been with practice queen for vocal and drum classes for 2 years, he really enjoyed his classes I can tell. The teachers are the best you can ask for a young kid: professional, passionate, full of patient, and most important they love kids they love music.

My daughter loves String Ensemble class.
Ms. Sylvia W is professional and inspiration.
My daughter has made headway in playing violin since she registered this class.
Ms. Sylvia W is a fabulous guide.

I’m an adult student and am having a great well-rounded experience taking classes with Effie. She pushes me and is also supportive and thoughtful about my workload and what material I am ready to take on. She keeps the material moving forward at a good pace.

I’d like to leave a review for cello teacher Elliot Mallard, violin teacher Pei-Shan Yu, and piano teacher Minghua Huang. They are each wonderful teachers– Elliot is extremely well-trained, has a gift for knowing how to help our child get the kind of sound and play out of her instrument, and is incredibly kind. It’s hard to find a teacher with a gift for teaching and who is both excellent and positive. Pei-Shan makes violin very fun and is consistently positive; she also shows personal care to our children, and has a good balance of knowing when to push them more and when to move them along. Minghua has high standards, and a high and positive energy that has made piano truly fun and really caused our child to bloom and advance quickly while also loving the instrument. I myself am a piano player, and I learn things from Minghua just by listening in that I never knew! Opus 1 offers a good variety of teachers to choose from and we’ve found some that fit our family well.

Great teachers:
Theresa Ronan: nice and encouraging;
Aaron Zhuang: patient and focusing on progress.

Peishan Yu is our violin teacher.