Julie's Music

Looking to start your young one on piano lessons? Need a gift for that hard-to-shop-for piano teacher? Or perhaps you been searching endlessly on the internet for that piano method your grandmother started you on, desperately googling "green book with dancing treble clef on the cover." Julie's Music, on East Stadium in Ann Arbor, can help you with all of these things.

Opened on April 26, 2006, Julie's Sheet Music is devoted to sheet music sales. As a young girl, founder and manager Julie King was disappointed when the Beatles piano sheet music she played did not sound like the Beatles songs she was hearing on the radio. Today, Julie makes certain that her customers don't experience similar frustrations; her store offers thousands of selections and is happy to special order anything she doesn't have.

But don't let your musical curiosities stop there. The store, while quite small, is jam packed with everything your fingers could possible dream of: piano methods and techniques, classical piano and vocal collections, jazz and instrumental music, band music, popular music, musical theatre and movie music, guitar music, and gifts and knick-knacks for music lovers of all ages.

Julie has over twenty-two years of experience. The daughter of Richard King, who opened King's Keyboard House in 1961, Julie began working at her father's piano store as a young girl. She took piano lessons at age five, starting with the Thompson method. After going to Western Michigan University, she returned to Ann Arbor to run the sheet music department at her father's store. When he retired in 2006, he left the business to two of his seven children, Julie and Jim.

But Julie had always wanted her own store. Around the same time that her father was retiring, a space opened up right down the road from King's Keyboard House. Julie jumped on the opportunity, taking most of the music from King's Keyboard and finally fulfilling her dream of opening up her own store.

Band music had been added to the King's Keyboard music collection in 2005 when Carty's, the only band music store in Ann Arbor, shut its doors. Julie chooses not to carry string music to avoid competition with Shar Music, which has been serving the string community since 1962. Music Go Round, another music store in Ann Arbor, sends customers to Julie's for sheet music, and in return Julie sends customers there if they need instrumental music she doesn't carry. Everyone in the local music business is pretty friendly, she says, and competition is not an issue.

But opening your own business is no easy task; starting the store was harder than Julie thought. When Jim started selling pianos for his father back in 1988, business got better and better. After eighteen years of selling pianos, transition from salesman to manager was smooth. But Julie started something entirely new, entirely on her own. She had to get a loan, move all the books, set them up in a tiny space, and even do a bit of bookkeeping. Most importantly, she says, she really learned what it's like to be a boss. To get her business going, she had quite a large payroll when she first started out. Everyone came to her for everything, she says, and there was nobody for her to lean on as when she ran the music department at her father's store. Today, the payroll is limited to herself, her nephew Alex, an employee that works about three fourths of the time, and a couple of kids that work a few hours a week at the register.

But Julie is happy that she went through with it, her business' first dollar proudly framed on the wall of her store. Her favorite part about running her own business, she says, is working with people. She tries to work with her employees to find their gifts, and encourages them to elaborate them. For her, she says, it's human relations; she wants all of her customers to feel comfortable when they come in and works hard to make sure everyone gets exactly what they need.

Julie's involvement in the community extends to teachers, parents, students, and universities. Most of her clientele is teachers, parents, and college students, and one of her strongest accounts is with the University of Michigan opera department. For the past five years, U of M has bought scores from her. Many professors from the pedagogue program have also been ordering music from Julie, for over twenty years. In addition, students who graduate from the U of M pedagogue program start their own program at a different university, and continue to give her business. She also has large orders from Eastern Michigan University, Schoolcraft College, and Concordia University. She knows dozens of teachers in the Ann Arbor community, and offers a 10% discount to any music teacher that walks through her door.

In terms of piano methods, Julie recommends Faber. It's the best seller in the store, she says, and Randall and Nancy Faber have their own studio in the area. She suggests starting kids with piano lessons at age six, when they begin to learn how to read. But starting earlier is perfectly fine, she says, "as long as they're interested."

For now, Julie's Music doesn't have any teachers, but she says that there will probably be a studio someday. Jim has studios at King's Keyboard House, and the siblings still support each other. Top

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