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The Future of In-Store Lessons? By Brian Berk
Although online music lessons have been successful for many retailers, it is difficult to duplicate the in-person experience. But how do you ensure that in-store lessons are safe now and in the future? Rand Cook, co-owner of Santa Fe, N.M.-based The Candyman Strings and Things, has a solution that he thinks many other MI retailers can also replicate. He calls it a hybrid between traditional in-store lessons and virtual lessons. Could this be the future of in-store lessons? Last month, Candyman developed a way in two of its lessons studios to have students and teachers enter through separate entrances so that they never come into contact with each other. Students must wear a mask until they arrive in the studio, but can remove the mask once inside, allowing even for singing or woodwind and brasswind lessons. “We looked at how we could restart inperson lessons, do so safely and reassure the public,” Cook told the Music & Sound Retailer. “I started looking at our studios. We have four that are back-to-back. So, we decided to cut a 72-inch-by-36-inch hole in between two studios and put up a thick piece of Plexiglas. In two studios, we now have the ability to have people see each other in person. In a virtual setting, you can only see two-dimensionally. You cannot turn around to see where a teacher’s head is positioned. But with what we’ve done, the three-dimensional space is back. It is a lot easier to process the visual information that is coming through than a virtual lesson.” This left one major hurdle to overcome: How do the student and teacher hear each other? “I came up with a very simple concept where we put a condenser microphone in one room and it feeds into a mixer that can feed the speaker on the opposite side of the wall and vice versa,” Cook explained. “When a student goes in, they are having a conversation through a PA system, but it is much more natural than the virtual world.” This arrangement has been well received by both students and instructors. “We started in [mid-July], Cook said. “The teachers are thrilled with it, and the students are thrilled with it. It gives students the option to be in a safe, very clean space.” Cook noted that the student will have no or very little contact with anyone else up to and including the lesson. The next challenge any MI retailer would face, however, is cleaning the studio once the student leaves. Cook explained how he tackled this problem. “We hired a specialist who is a customer of ours. His company specializes in getting rid of viruses,” said Cook. “Each studio has an airfree, filterless purifier that removes all particulate matter by using super heat. There are a lot of articles that [include evidence that] a temperature above 200 degrees [Fahrenheit] can kill the coronavirus. These purifiers heat the air up to 400 degrees, filter the air, recool it on the way out, and the result is all particulate matter is dead. These purifiers run 24 hours a day. [One] can cover the cubic size of the studio in about 15 minutes.” To further ensure a safe environment, Candyman leaves a half-hour MUSIC & SOUND RETAILER
period between lessons — enough time to ensure that the room has been fully purified. The Santa Fe store also performs surface cleaning of commonly touched surfaces. And every night, the store utilizes a hospitalgrade fogger disinfectant that it runs throughout the lesson room. The lesson room is also vacuumed so it is ready for the next day. The cost of all the work, including the filtration devices and fogging machines for both studios: $3,000. Once the COVID-19 pandemic passes, Cook stated he will still offer the touchless studio as an “open option.” “When we move past this, we will have the option to operate studios individually from one another or as a conjoined ‘safe’ studio,” he said. “If that is where the comfort level is, great, we have that option. If
students just want virtual lessons, we have that option too.” Despite plenty of lost MI business due to the lack of work for gigging musicians, demand for music lessons has been robust, mostly because people have run out of things to do during the pandemic. “Music is one of the things that will prevail during this whole mess,” said Cook. “People have a lot of time on their hands. More and more people will be turning to music, because it is something they can do safely in their own space,” relayed Cook. The co-owner of The Candyman Strings and Things personally can’t wait for the global pandemic to end, for all of the obvious reasons of course, but also so actor Idris Elba, who came into the store in March 10 while filming a movie, can return. “I took a picture with him and put it all over Facebook,” said Cook. “Super nice guy. He hung out for 45 minutes and bought a Fender Player Strat, a DJ kit and a couple of other things. I am sure we will see him again. Production on the movie should continue once we are on the other side of this [pandemic].” Cook said he is happy to answer any MI retailer’s questions about how the lesson room install was completed. He can be reached at rand@candymansf.com. 27