Prince Music Company

I have taken lessons with Prince Music Company for about 2 years now and am consistently pleased with the knowledge and expertise of the staff. I have been able to regain the abilities I had as a young student player and excelled beyond my past understanding of music and the piano.

If you’re looking for a place to learn piano, either for yourself or your children, do yourself a favor and check out Prince Music Company. I started my lessons 8 months ago and it’s been the best time I’ve had learning something new. Pika, my instructor is patient and very knowledgeable as a teacher. I’ve enjoyed my time learning at her direction. The studio has a warm and inviting atmosphere. The instructors have a friendly attitude and are ready to answer any questions you might have. Lessons can be tailored to your schedule and the prices are more than reasonable.

WARNING!!! Stay away from this place and especially from Pika. At first when this place just opened at Har Mar Mall, we went in to inquire piano lessons for our daughter. The so called director of this place, Pika wanted our business and to sign-​up our daughter for the lessons. So we went ahead and paid for the buy 4 get the 5^th lesson free deal since this place was new. At the 3^rd session, my wife noticed Pika didn’t know the lesson she was trying to teach my daughter so she became defensive and told us my daughter is not welcome here anymore. It’s like what happened? She’s still only a student at U of MN and she thought she was qualified to teach but I guess she didn’t expect a parent like my wife to call her out on her mistakes in the session. If the owner of this place knows how inexperienced Pika is and still allow her to do this the business will go down. So my warning to anyone signing up here is to avoid Pika.
But good thing is that we’ve found a really good experienced PhD teacher for our daughter elsewhere. Good luck to all.

Not knowing a thing about string instruments, we purchased a cello for our daughter from this store in August, lured by the low price. I later learned that 1.) you get what you pay for and 2.) we had purchased something equivalent to a toy, and definitely not something a student can properly learn with. Our daughter started lessons at her elementary school in late September and we received a note from the teacher early on indicating the instrument would not stay in tune due to the pegs sliding out easily. Literally, they slid out on a daily basis — they never stayed put. We tried our best to make it work, but finally came back to the store in November and an employee looked over the cello and just said we needed to use «more force» with the pegs. Yet we continued to have issues with these pegs — and it’s impossible to learn on a cello that doesn’t stay in tune. Our cello teacher had pointed out several other features that were problematic (the bridge isn’t shaped properly, which makes it hard to slide the bow across the strings correctly, among other things). So I called the store in December, spoke with Pika (the store’s «director»), explained our concerns and she asked us to come in with the cello that night with our receipt. We came in that night with the cello, our receipt, and a letter from our daughter’s teacher explaining why this instrument was unacceptable to learn on. Pika then looked over the cello carefully and gave us a partial refund ($ 300, paid to us in the form of a check; we originally paid $ 350+ tax). We felt that was fair given that we bought the instrument 4 months ago and the store has a «no returns after 30 days» policy. The next day Pika wrote us an email, indicating that the cello was not from their store, and that our daughter must have mixed it up with someone else’s at school. She then stopped payment on the check. I have never, in my life, experienced something like this. Who accepts a return and then takes their money back?! And she’s flat-​out lying about the cello not being from this store. We have photos of our daughter with this cello from August, before she took it to school. We kept a luggage tag on the case with my daughter’s name on it. There are features that are very distinguishing and unlike any cello at her elementary school, including the pegs and the shape of the bridge. Everyone else in our daughter’s lesson group had rented instruments from Schmitt which are marked as such and night-​and-​day different quality wise (10 times better) compared to the Prince cello. If someone had switched with my daughter they (and the teacher) would have known immediately — because this cello wouldn’t stay in tune and is a piece of crap! Our daughter’s orchestra teacher indicated she had never seen a cello so poorly made, ever. I would not, by any circumstance, buy an instrument from this store. These are scam artists.

This is a pretty good music shop. The people there are very nice and have answers to all your questions. The prices for a violin is very inexpensive. I was shocked. It is nice to find a place that isn’t too expensive that has musical instruments. It’s not really a guitar shop, it is more like a place to shop for middle school orchestra equipment. I would definitely recommend this place. If you are in the area, check ‘em out!

The Prince Music Company is stacked with some amazingly talented and kind-​hearted people who have a genuine interest in helping others with their musical paths. The lessons are smooth and fun, making it seem so natural and easy to be learning new skills! I’m excited for their new HarMar Mall location to open, but have always appreciated that they’ll hold lessons in my home, too. Thanks so much, Prince Music Co.