UCF instructors explore the intersection of music and neuroscience.

Read the article through the link below. It's really cool.

http://orlandoweekly.com/news/this-is-your-brain-on-music-1.1499979?parentPage=2.2254

Ernie Ball Cobalt Strings in stock!

Available in 9 and 10 gauge sets at the moment. Come on in and check 'em out!

Re-Strings for Food!

Jammers Music center is now doing what we like to call "Re-Strings for Food."  On the last Saturday of each month, you bring in your guitar, bass, violin, banjo, or mandolin, buy the strings from us, and we'll put them on for you at no cost.  All we ask is that you bring in a can of food to help support one of the three local food banks that Jammers is donating to each month. 

Jammers just celebrated 20 years in business this September so we're coming up with ways to help give back to the community that has supported us for the past 20 years.  In this time of economic uncertainty, helping feed our neighbors seems to be the right thing to do.  Thank you all so much for helping support your local music store!

Intellectual benefits of music lessons

"Music lessons may offer children intellectual benefits and fine-tune their sensitivity to emotion in speech, according to research by two University of Toronto psychologists presented at APA's 2003 Annual Convention.
In one of the reported studies--in press at Psychological Science--E. Glenn Schellenberg, PhD, recruited 144 6-year-olds to take free weekly arts lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto for one year. He randomly assigned children to either keyboard or voice lessons--the experimental groups--or drama lessons or no lessons--the control groups. The drama lessons served to control for increases in IQ that could result from participation in any extracurricular activity, said Schellenberg.
He tested children's IQ before and after the year of lessons, and found that while IQs increased across the board by about 4.5 points because of attending a year of school, scores for the children in the music groups increased an additional 2.5 points.
That's a small, but significant, connection, he noted. He suggested that the periods of focused attention, memorization and concentration associated with the lessons and practice may explain the increase."

For more information and more of this article, visit the link below:

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/lessons.aspx

Gearing up for band!

Here at Jammers we're all stocked up with the all the accessories you need to get going this band season.  From reeds and mouthpieces to flip folders and music stands we've got it covered.

Don't have your own instrument and don't want to spend a fortune buying one?  Jammers has a month to month rental option.  Instruments are provided from Veritas Musical Instruments which are available for rent.  These are all professional student models from brands such as Bach, Blessing, Conn, Selmer and more.

What's so great about this is that you can take the rental to ownership or return it whenever you like and your payments will stop that day.

Give us a call or send us an email to find out more!

$19.95 Guitar Setups and more!

Need to setup your guitar, bass, or violin? $19.95 plus a set of strings will get your standard acoustic, electric, or violin setup.  Floyd Rose systems will be $29.95.  What's a setup include you ask? Jake, our guitar tech will change the strings, straighten out the neck, check the electronics, and set the intonation. If your at all interested in playing an in tune guitar and one that plays comfortably, here's your chance!

Walden Acoustics B-Stock sale!

What's a B-Stock you ask? It's a label that the manufacturer, in this case, Walden Guitars, gives any of their instruments that may have a minor defect to it, stating that it's not up to top quality standards.  This doesn't mean that the guitar isn't still in great shape.  More often than not, the B-stock label means that the finish of the guitar has a small blemish to it.

This is good news for you because these guitars are discounted even further from the normal price that we would sell them at.  To make it even better, Walden Guitars are still honoring their factory limited lifetime warranty!  They even throw in a gig bag for most of these guitars.  Whata guy, whata guy!

Walden Acoustics carry most all body types for acoustics from a standard Dreadnought to Grand Auditorium and Classical.  They are all made from the finest woods including Solid Sitka Spruce for most of the tops to the dark and beautiful Indian Rosewood for the back and sides. Other woods include Western Red Cedar, African Mahogany, and Engelmann Spruce.

These guitars are made in China however not through factory machines like most guitar companies produce.  Back in November of '09 we had the great pleasure to meet Jon Lee, guitar luthier and CEO of the Walden Guitar Company. He explained to us how he knew to make an excellent guitar it need to have the human touch.  The following words are from Walden guitars themseleves.

"Walden's manufacturing process draws specifically from Jon Lee's experience as a luthier at CFox Guitars, and from techniques used at USA large production shops such as Martin and Taylor. Our guiding principal is to respect the elements of the guitar building process that are critical to producing quality stable, excellent sounding guitars.  Knowing what we absolutely can not compromise and knowing what we must do to create instruments at this price level.  

In our four broad departments: Parts Fabrication, Body-Neck Assembly, Finish, and Setup, each process has its own jig, machine fixture or mold that ensures the consistency of result. Most work is done by hand with recognizable standard woodworking machines such as table saws, jointers, routers, band saws, etc.  Some automated machines are used when either a better result can ensue, such as a fingerboard fret-slotting machine, or when an operation is too laborious for an employee.

Looking at the history of Asian guitar making, most current factories trace their history to Japanese methods from the 1960's where they were essentially producing low cost alternatives to USA and European made instruments.  As labor costs rose in Japan, this system of guitar-building moved to Korea and Taiwan, and later Mainland China and now Indonesia.  

Many Asian operations still make "guitar shaped objects."  This is due to a lack of understanding of the fundamentals of guitar design or manufacturing, or due to the business model of producing the cheapest instruments dictating their choice of poor materials or poor method.  

From a product standpoint, outside of procedural differences, all Walden guitars incorporate a bolt-on neck joint and 2-way adjustable truss rods which are both less common in Asian manufacturing.  Fret ends are hand shaped and polished above standards even seen at Martin." - Walden Guitars