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Falcetti Music celebrates 50 years
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The Falcetti Family
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By Debbie Gardner
PRIME Editor
I remember the Falcetti Music Center in Indian Orchard. For five years I dutifully carried my blonde Guild electric guitar to the studio for my half-hour lesson with guitar instructor, Richard Howes.
I wasn't the most talented student he taught, but I was dedicated, always turning in a practice report card filled with the requisite 30 minutes a day of time spent mastering scales and songs.
I played in my first band the group practice that was part of the lessons with Falcetti's.
I also won my first and only trophy a first place for perfectly performing "Turkey in the Straw" in the Massachusetts State Guitar competition with Falcetti's.
And I gave my first live solo performance thanks to Falcetti's. I was one of the students selected to entertain in the music studio's display booth at the Eastern States Exposition in the early 1970s.
They were great experiences then, and great memories now. But somehow, I always thought of them as just music lessons.
It never occurred to me that I was a part of something that, decades later, would be the biggest name in music in Western Massachusetts.
A name that, on Feb. 22, will celebrate 50 years of bringing music into the lives of people throughout the Pioneer Valley.
Music with a mission
"My dream was to have a chain of music stores," Anselmo "Sam" Falcetti told me when I met with him, his wife and company treasurer, Peggy and sons, Anthony "Tony" and Michael, at the Boston Road store in Springfield. "I was teaching while going to [Hartt] college, and I opened up my first store."
Falcetti financed that first music studio, located in Westfield, with a $50 loan from his mother and first employee Rose Baker.
The year was 1957, and his newly-opened Westfield accordion Center had 10 students.
Today, Falcetti Music teaches approximately 2,000 students, with nearly 700 of them enrolled in the company's popular "Play for Life" organ program geared to mature music students.
But, as Falcetti said, his music stores today offer much more than the private lessons, bands, student instrument rentals and guitar and accordion sales that I remembered from the Indian Orchard location.
"Today, if we just taught, we couldn't keep the doors open," Falcetti said, referring to the education-based concept that launched his Westfield, Indian Orchard (opened in 1959) and Enfield, Conn. (opened in 1963) studios. "You have to have instrument sales," he continued, gesturing through the glass window of his office to the showroom of pianos beyond. "We deliver over 1,000 pianos and organs a year."
The transformation into a full-line music store concept actually started, Falcetti said, when the then three-studio chain opened a full-line music store, including pianos and organs, at the Holyoke Mall in 1979.
"Today we have 300 to 400 pianos in stock. But we just don't sell. We repair, we have a refinisher, piano tuner, driver and truck," he said. "We've become a major player in pianos."
It's still a place to learn
But as Michael Falcetti, vice president and director of the music education program, said, the business' greater emphasis on instrument sales hasn't lessened the importance of his dad's original mission
"We've never lost our focus on [music] education," said Michael, adding that Falcetti Music still offers lessons in all of their stores. But he admitted that even this area of the business has changed since his dad opened his first studio.
"The biggest competition in music education are the Internet, self-taught books, videos and DVDs," Michael said. "But there's nothing that can take the place of a personal lesson."
Falcetti Music still offers the trial lesson program, which includes instrument rental. If the student chooses to continue with the program, Falcetti's offers them the opportunity to purchase an instrument at a discount.
"I think today people tend to buy things before they even do the activity," Michael said. "We have the best of both worlds. We have the lessons and we have the instruments."
Keeping music alive in the Valley
And the guitar and accordion contests aren't the only ways Falcetti Music is providing area musicians with a place to test their skills. Jay Prokop, vice president of operations for Falcetti Music explained that the company has partnered with Energenza, the world's largest promoter of battle of the band competitions, to facilitate these competitions in the Hartford and Springfield area.
"We provide the space for [Emergenza] to meet with the bands, and the show gear," Prokop explained. "These bands who would not have a way to showcase their talent get to play."
And, Prokop said, the winning bands get to advance in the competition to state and national level, with the culmination being a competition in Sweden. The grand prize is a recording contract.
For more information Prokop said bands should check out the Emergenza web site.
Falcetti said his stores have also partnered with Clear Channel Radio to act as venue for intimate 50-to-60 person concerts within their stores, hosting artists such as Clint Black, the Goo Goo Dolls and Gloria Estefan.
Moving Forward
But providing new ways to bring music to the Valley aren't the only changes Falcetti Music is planning for now and the future.
"The transition is in place for the business to go to our children, Anthony and Michael," said Falcetti. "Anthony is running the day-to-day operations as president, and he has for the last four to five years."
In that role, Anthony, who prefers to be called Tony, is overseeing the modernization of many of the key customer services that keep Falcetti Music running.
"We do have a web site, but its being totally reorganized," he said, adding that it should be in place withing 30 to 60 days.
Tony is also overseeing the move toward an automated scheduling system for music education, eventually allowing students to register for lessons, cancel lessons or pay for their lessons electronically.
He is also working on upgrading the technology that handles customer service issues.
But beyond his work in modernizing the family business' operating systems, Tony is also working on plans to take the Falcetti Music store concept to the next level.
He's already launched the new concept with a re-design of the Enfield, Conn. store.
It's a concept that expands on the Boston Road Music Mall design, developed when Falcetti's combined stores in downtown Springfield and Indian Orchard into one location in the early 1990s.
"We see it as a musical gathering place, Tony said of the Enfield location. "There's a cafe with wireless Internet access, soft drinks and packaged snacks, and we host events acoustic nights, etc. "
The store also has a glass-walled combo room displaying equipment bands need to play out, another area were pianos are displayed in room settings, a performance room and nine private teaching booths.
But the most important thing, Tony said, is that it's a concept that is comfortable for all Falcetti's customers, from the four-year-olds (and their parents) who come in for lessons, to the Play for Life elder students to serious musicians who can come to the cafe to talk about music.
"In three years I see all of our stores [the company also has locations in Shrewsbury, Pittsfield and Rocky Hill, Conn.] will be the Enfield concept, Tony said.
And as Sam Falcetti looks back across his 50 year - dream, he sees satisfaction in his own work, and what his children have planned for the future.
"This is a family business, an absolute family business, with family values," Falcetti said. "We all have different jobs to do, but it's still family."
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