House of Woodwinds

I am a piano teacher and have been a customer of House of Woodwinds for over 10 years. The quantity and variety of the music stock on hand is the best I have found in the area. If you need an item that is not in stock, it is ordered and waiting for you, all in a timely manner.
In addition, my son decided to try the saxophone in 4^th grade. We rental a sax and at the end of the school year he wanted to stick with it. We purchased the instrument, and the monthly rental payments actually went towards the purchase price (up to 9 months worth of rental, if I remember correctly).
We are very happy with the customer service and level of knowledge demonstrated by the employees, and will continue to use them for our music needs.

I rented a violin. They said they would notify me when the rent would exceed the purchase price of (sale price of $ 149) They said would send three letter informing us of our buy out options. We never received any letters or emails. I informed the store manager about this and he said «That is not my problem» Very rude!
We paid rental of over $ 300 and then contact the manager David. Who said he still wanted an additional $ 79.35. I asked to speak to the owner and he put me on hold for a long time. He said the owner is out of state.
I offered David to keep the over $ 300 paid and we keep the violin. We would have overall paid double the price and he still wanted more money.
Be very careful.
David was not helpful and was very discourteous.

Very helpful! Needed to rent a cello for my (not) so musically talented 4^th grader. They pulled one out of the closet, sized it up and BAM, we had a cello. Very helpful people and knowledgable. Highly recommend.

Admittedly, didn’t spend much time here and the staff was ready to help. As a more advanced saxophonist though, I didn’t find much that was of interest. They had a full line of Vandoren reeds And lines from a couple other brands, but were lacking in horn selection. Much like their sister store, what saxes they did have were various Cannonball brand horns. Good instruments, but it’s always nice to have a wider selection (Selmers, Yanigisawa, Yamaha would be nice to cross shop in store.
Not much in the way of accessories or other gear (mouthpieces, ligatures, etc.) save for a mostly student-​focused selection (replacement Yamaha 4C mouthpieces, replacement two-​screw ligatures, etc.).
That said, the store was quite alive when I visited, hosting a number of lessons with a few patient parents waiting out front. There was an extensive method book and sheet music selection that was nicely organized, and the aforementioned friendly personnel who were eager to help.
They also seem to be able to do some repairs on site, which is nice, but not sure of the extent of the services
They offer in store. To my understanding, they probably send out major work (overhauls, etc.) to Best Instrument Repair in Oakland.
In sum, a great place to furnish a beginning student with a great setup, but a bit lacking for advanced customers interested in specialized or high end accessories or instruments.

I’m a music teacher and I love this store. Most independently run music shops are unprofessional, disorganized dumps run by a bunch of completely clueless teenagers. H of W is always very helpful and has great customer service. Their data bank of individual songs that can be printed in any key is a life saver for someone in my business.

Review For Music Rental:
one word — DISHONEST I think it is not a good idea to rent any instrument with them. We rented a Saxophone and were not happy with the whole ordeal. What is written in the contract and what they said before we rented, they do not follow that (especially the 9 month rent waive off policy). Also, make sure that you note down all the scratches and dents in the instrument if you are renting an old instrument. Because they are not that thorough in noting it down and when you return the instrument you won’t get the deposit back. I think it is not a good idea to rent with them, maybe purchasing a new instrument might be OK. The musik shoppe at Santa Rita Pleasanton are better for renting.

Music rental
I have two kids who joined the music band in school for the past 4 years, and they have changed several music instruments over the years to explore their interests. We rented clarinet, french horn, and two trumpets all with the House of Woodwinds. Overall, we feel that they were ok. I am not a big complainer (and too busy to spend time complaining anything) as long as they do the job. However, we recently come across another music store about 12 miles away and rented a trumpet from the other store. I was horrified to find out that the quality of the trumpet that we rent from the other store is so much better and newer compared with the one we rent from House of Woodwinds, which in comparison is very old and in bad condition. I also got a note from the school teacher yesterday telling me that I should return the French Horn that we rent from House of Woodwind because the quality is SO bad that my son deserves something better. I am very disturbed by what I learned and I feel that I should speak up. I will return the Horn and I don’t think I will go back to rent another music instrument from them. (Their rental price is approximately the same as the other stores.) The staff is friendly and helpful by the way.

The staff is very helpful. Good place to buy music books and band instruments.

2 kids-​flute & alto sax. Flute-​they helped me tune-​up my 20 yr old flute so my daughter could play as finances were tight & didn’t know if she’d stick w/​it. 4 yrs later w/​a new flute bought frm there, we still came back to help my son choose his first instrument. They’re always willing to talk & help. If they have to order it, they will & will call you when it comes in. They helped my son try out the trumpet & sax. My son chose the sax and he is now happy learning on his sax in 4^th grade. They treat us well so we go back.

I’m a music teacher, so I am probably more picky than most. But here is the straight dope:
— They aren’t like most music stores that only sell guitars (as the name implies), but for a band-​based store, they fall somewhat short. They had a strange selection of mouthpieces kind of just thrown into a drawer in the back. They didn’t have ligatures for many of them (meaning, they didn’t have a single ligature in the store that could possibly fit certain mouthpieces, not just that the mouthpiece didn’t come with one).
— Only one of the three people working was actually a musician himself. The other two seemed widely incompetent, mispronouncing words like «ligature» and brand names like «Rovner.» One employee actually scratched grooves in a metal mouthpiece we wanted to try because she tried to force a ligature on it. Who will want to buy that now? It was a $ 200+ mouthpiece and she destroyed it right in front of us.
— They are expensive. Yes, it is good to support your local music store. However, on one mouthpiece they were charging $ 40 more than the leading online vendor (Brasswind & Woodwind), $ 50 more than some random seller on Amazon.
However, they are nice people. They let us try stuff in their storage room because lessons were going on in the practice rooms. They also weren’t very snobby.

«NO MOM, I don’t want to go to my piano lesson today!!! Didn’t we go last week??!»
«Come on little Janice. I bought a piano for you and you don’t even practice!!! Waste of my money!»
Memories? Yup. I didn’t even know what a clarinet was in the 4^th grade until we were told to choose an instrument. I used to come here when i was young and completely bored, and buy reeds. lol. Then my mom decided I shall continue my piano lessons here too. Now that I think about it, the lady was a rip off. Something like 30 or 60 dollars for half an hour to trade in PART of a 25 cents sticker IF i passed a song?! I think I only got like 5 stickers, and the nice ones I sticked it on our toyota van.
Overall though, they obviously have a great selection if they’ve been around for so many years. Drums, guitars, books, REEDS, they have everything-​i think. I don’t know, i’ve been haunted to go back for years. :)

These guys are great. They help out alot when you need an instrument, their prices are fair, and they are pretty informative. The great thing is that when you talk to the people who work there they generally give you helpful information and you can tell that they are experienced with instruments.
My only problem is that instrument repair can be hit or miss. Sometimes something that looks like a quick fix will cost you and sometimes something that looks drastic ends up being an easy fix. Also, it gets frustrating when they need to send instruments to their Oakland location for repair. However, i think this is just because i don’t know much about the nature of instrument repair. (most of the time i use rubber bands and tissue to fix my Bari-​Sax.)