Hobgoblin Music

Hobgoblin, which specialises in acoustic and folk musical instruments, recently moved to larger premises further up Park Street, and now offers customers far more space to move about and enjoy browsing.
This is Hobgoblin Bristol’s flagship shop, stocked floor to ceiling with all sorts of weird and wonderful instruments, as well as sheet music, music books and accessories such as metronomes, tuners and music stands. It’s a wonderful place to browse around because there are so many unusual and beautiful instruments to look at, from mandolins and banjos to harps and fiddles.
Manager Cris Pierssene is clearly passionate about the instruments he stocks, and all the staff are involved in folk music in some way or other. Shoppers can try out and compare acoustic, folk, celtic and world musical instruments before they buy. You can also look at the stock of used musical instruments if you’re a beginner on a tighter budget, or if you would rather buy a vintage or antique instruments.

A trip to Hobgoblin music is like a trip to musical wonderfuland. They have such an array of beautiful instruments. I don’t even play the violin but I am madly in love with the gorgeous green violin displayed in the window. As well as traditional instruments like guitars and violins, they have weird and wonderful things like ukulele’s and world instruments.
A beautiful place to browse. I haven’t bought anything from here but the staff seem helpful.

This place is excellent for what it does, which includes sheet music for every kind of instrument you can think of (not the real reason I go here, but good to know it’s there all the same) and a section out back that contains a ridiculous number of weird and wonderful things to play (the actually reason I go here). There are a number of acoustic guitars, including steel, nylon, twelve-​string, bass, baritone and resonator variants, plus a bunch of ukuleles, mandolins and even lutes (or, at least, something that looks pretty bloody similar to a lute). Then there are plenty of small harps, dulcimers and auto-​harps. They also have every percussion instrument under the sun, too. In short, I love all these bizarre folk and world instruments, and often get all carried away dreaming of learning something totally unique that no one in their right mind would bother with, just to be cool. Anyway, the staff are great, let you try things out whenever you want (and leave you in peace while you do this, which is a bloody godsend nowadays!) and are happy to answer your questions. Check them out.