Play it again, Bill — Landow ensures the music keeps

When you step in to Bill Landow’s store in the Old Bag Factory in Goshen, it’s almost like you’re stepping in to another realm. Musical instruments of every variety fill every available space in the shop — the floor, walls, shelves, cabinets and even the ceiling. It’s a musician’s paradise.

Landow has been running Second Song Musical Resale Shop for 11 years, but most of his 76 years have been consumed by a love of music, which is clearly manifested in his store. His inventory includes everything from guitars, mandolins, banjos, dulcimers and lutes on the stringed side; clarinets, flutes, oboes and saxophones for the woodwind players; to coronets, trumpets, trombones and French horns for the brass section. But it doesn’t stop there. He also has orchestra instruments, including violins, violas and basses; drum sets, keyboards, accordians and harmonicas.

“I have any kind of musical instruments except pianos and organs, because I don’t have room for them,” said Landow. “I didn’t realize until I’d been doing this for about three years that this was one of my dreams when I was in high school. I am the only store in northern Indiana that sells woodwind, brass and orchestra instruments, new or used, other than a pawn shop. We buy them, recondition them and sell them. We repair anybody’s instrument who wants to bring them in.”

Second Song’s inventory includes top quality, reconditioned band instruments for middle and high school aged students. Landow pointed out the instruments he has for sale are much better than the relatively inexpensive Chinese-made versions many parents buy for their kids via Continued on page 3

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