Music Center Cultivating Coffeehouse Scene For Players

By John Voket

Liz Reisman will be the first to tell you her parents warned she would never make money in music. But the high profile journalist turned entrepreneur is finally making a go of it, and maybe showing some long-overdue defiance in the process.

The Easton resident recently expanded her Monroe-based Creative Music Center to a sprawling new location at 701 Main Street, just a half-mile south of the former cozy studios just a few minutes drive from Newtown on Route 25.

In establishing her own standalone music store from the ground-up, this former nationally published journalist may also be making history. She was told recently that NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchandisers, has determined she may be the first woman to ever build her own independent music store.

While that information is yet unconfirmed, it is true that Ms Reisman is among just a select few women to establish such an enterprise. But she is not stopping at just building a store where fledgling and veteran musicians can come to peruse racks of instruments, take lessons, or check out new equipment from drums to amps to keyboards to a full line of band and orchestra accessories.

The music store owner wants to create a new generation facility where musicians and music teachers can drop in for seminars, to conduct master classes or recitals, and where musicians of all calibers can meet renowned peers, or just sit in on an old-fashioned Sunday afternoon jam session.

But if you knew Ms Reisman just a few years ago, you might never have imagined she would become a groundbreaking pioneer in the retail music business. She started playing clarinet in elementary school and switched to the flute by the time she hit fifth grade.

In high school she expanded her talents, mastering several types of saxophone as well as returning to flute. She marched off to college at UC Davis in California where she enjoyed performing in both the marching band on sax and playing flute in orchestra.

“The road back was accidental — I wanted to be a music teacher, but my mother said I would never make money in music, so I went into another infamous money-making field, journalism,” she said with a laugh during a recent visit to her new store. After enjoying a successful career as a magazine writer and editor, she was ready for a change as her children began to grow up and discovered playing music themselves.

“I got into the business because my daughter was taking music lessons at Creative Music years ago. But when she got interested I went to the phone book to find lessons and there was nothing around,” Ms Reisman said. “I’m in Easton so the ride to Monroe was convenient.”

She said she was evaluating what to do with her life at the same time the former owner of Creative Music was shutting down. “So I met with her and pitched buying the business.

“I remember the first day I came in — didn’t know how to work the register. But the moment I heard the first student, a trumpet player, playing away in the practice room, I was convinced I did the right thing.”

After just a couple of years behind the counter, Ms Reisman determined her vision for Creative Music Center simply would not fit in the space she was occupying, so she went to work planning the standalone location where the store is today.

“Here we are, five years later,” she said.

On December 1, 2007, she opened the new store. And from day one, her attitude was to create a welcoming atmosphere for anyone who plays, and even the people who love them.

“I think I’m the best person to own this kind of business because I’m the ultimate customer,” she said. “I’m 44 and I have an 11- and 13-year-old. Every day my customers walk in here because they are looking for a local musical outlet. These customers are musicians, but they are also tired, hungry moms, who are passionate about music.”

With its new facility, the business has doubled in both staff size and student levels. The 5,100- square-foot store boasts a retail area, ten state-of-the-art lesson rooms, and a multipurpose room.

But Ms Reisman wants to cultivate the center as a destination for all music people, including celebrities. Drummer Liberty DeVitto, who plays with Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks, and Paul McCartney, held a drum clinic at Creative Music Center last Saturday, April 5.

The store was also chosen as a venue by Camp Jam and NAMM, Guitar Hero III, Legends of Rock Contest, and a National Rock Solo Contest. And on March 15, the Creative Music Center hosted the “World’s Longest Community Jam” as part of its Grand Opening Celebration, and to commemorate national “Music in Our Schools Month.”

Moving forward, Ms Reisman is committed to “opening our doors to any music teacher in the area to hold master classes and recitals. We want this to be a musical resource and center, with the drop-in scene of a neighborhood coffee shop.

“We want kids to hang around here, it’s a social thing. And it all rubs off on them a little bit — and it’s so much better than hanging out alone in your room practicing,” she said.

Creative Music Center is planning a Barn Concert April 27, which started with an idea from a customer who wanted to get small groups of musicians together. At 3 pm that afternoon, Jennifer Lowe, a local percussionist, and her friends will be doing the intimate set showcasing her songwriting craft.

“Like a storytellers format,” Ms Reisman said. “Like a wine tasting but with music.”

The music store owner also knows that being on the Internet is a must.

“So as our online site incorporates streaming video, the community experience grows,” she said. “Visitors will be able to come to the store through a video business card, another cutting edge aspect for a small business.”

For more information about Creative Music Center, call 261-7301 or visit ww.thecreativemusiccenter.com.