Features

While Berkeley merchants offer an incomparable range of recorded music from Electronica & House to Dvorak and Vivaldi, serious students can find instruments, sheet music and some of the most obscure ethnic titles. 

Tupper & Reed on Shattuck Avenue has been in business for 80 years, originally in the Tudor building next door—a City of Berkeley Landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Current partner Wayne Anderson began working at Tupper & Reed in 1969 when he was a graduate student in music at Cal, and now uses extras of his 200,000 sheet music titles as wallpaper to decorate his display window walls. 

With only three successive owners, Tupper & Reed sells, rents, and repairs a wide range of instruments, including electric guitars and drums in the basement, where 15 music instructors teach beginners to advanced musicians in seven sound studios. Well known musicians who have either studied or taught there include Lenny Pickett of the Saturday Night Live Band; Mike Wolfe, who played with Cal Tjader and served as musical director of the Arsenio Hall Show; jazz pianist Rodney Franklin; and Chris Solberg, who has played with Santana and Chris Izaak. 

Forrests Music on University was founded by Dutch and Kate Forrest on Kittredge Street. Current owners John and Marilyn Goebel were Forrests repair technicians, and they still feature woodwind and brass instruments, especially oboes and bassoons, saxophones, trumpets, bagpipes, Klutz harmonicas, or anything else one can blow through. Several instructors give lessons (including drums) at Forrests, all instruments are for sale or for rent, and every employee plays woodwinds.  

Across University and down a little is the Bazaar of India, “the first Indian store on University.” Kirpal Khanna founded his shop in 1971, and has been President of the University Avenue Association (UAA) for the past six years. While Khanna offers all things from India, he sells and repairs hundreds of instruments including varieties of sitar, tabla, sarod, harmonium, dholak, tamboura, and santoor. 

Instructors teach tabla and harmonium every Friday from 4:00-6:00 p.m. Classes cost $20 per hour, and you must bring your own or a borrowed instrument. 

Bazaar of India also offers CDs, cassettes, DVDs, instruction books, and sheet music, and repairs instruments on site. Recognizable musicians who have frequented Bazaar of India include Ali Akbar Khan and Zakir Hussain. 

Back down the north side of University is a true Berkeley treasure, Ifshin’s Violins, in a two-story brown shingled renovated bungalow. Everything at Ifshin’s epitomizes excellent taste: the restored pine floors, Oriental rugs, an unusually fine collection of vintage international posters featuring violins and violin artists, and, of course, violins. Owner Jay Ifshin studied violin making in Salt Lake City, Utah and Bozeman, Montana, and worked for the store’s previous owner. All sales people play bowed string instruments with Bay Area symphonies or groups. 

Violin experts or beginning learners will find the best Jay Haide student instruments, as well as the occasional Stradivarius. While Ifshin’s has 2,000 violins available for rentals, seven violin makers create Baroque violins in the back for serious players. Thought to be largest on the west coast, this unique shop also carries violas, cellos, basses—and no guitars. Also on offer are lessons, repairs, accessories, gadgets, and Suzuki sheet music. 

Reid’s Music, founded in 1945 by Melvin and Betty Reid, is West Coast headquarters for gospel music CDs, DVDs, videos, gospel music books, and gospel sheet music. David Reid’s uncle, Paul Reid, was the first religious DJ on the West Coast at KDIA and KRE. 

Reid’s focuses on the “Black church experience,” providing choir robes, bibles, song books and church supplies, as well as African American music, blues, and jazz. 

Harder to find but well worth the trip is Boaz Accordions. Boaz and Judy Rubin opened their accordion shop in 1995, after Boaz apprenticed accordion building and repairs with the legendary Gordon Piatanesi. A lifelong musician, Boaz once worked as a machinist and has the patience for the painstaking work required to make the instruments that make almost everyone smile. 

Boaz carries piano accordions and chromatic button accordions in addition to diatonic button, Tex-Mex, Cajun, Irish, Concertina, folk, and Bandorian accordions for tango music. The Rubins’ signature accordion is the famous, top-of-the-line Armando Bugari from Italy. 

KPFA’s Larry Kelp is an “accordion freak” according to Judy Rubin and a frequent visitor. Boaz prefers the “old-fashioned way of doing business”—in person—since accordion selection and playing is so personal.  

Boaz holds Wednesday night drop-in beginners classes at 7:00 p.m., and features CDs, books, music, accessories, stands, and “workshops with visiting geniuses.”  

A final note: Besides the chains, some independent bookstores sell recorded music including Half Price Books, Music, and Magazines at 1849 Solano Ave.; Pegasus Fine books & CDs at 1855 Solano Ave. and 2349 Shattuck Ave. Moe’s Books, at 2476 Telegraph Ave., offers a good selection of new and used sheet music as well as a few carefully selected CDs.