a real Pittsburgh jewel - unpretentious, small, cramped, cozy shop with perhaps the best selection of high end acoustic guitars in the country - also banjos and mandolins -all acoustic, no electric guitars or amplifiers. The owner and teachers are very experienced and tell it like it is, sometimes brutally honest. The place is too small - sometimes you can't move but it's always worth a visit. I bought a guitar there - spent about four times what I planned to spend but got a great education on what differentiates a real handrafted guitar from a factory guitar. Their stuff is expensive. good guitars cost thousands of dollars, not hundreds. gulp! Interesting people (great players) hang out there. If you hang around for a half hour, someone will stop in who really can play great - more talent in Pittsburgh than you can imagine. Lots of graduate students and professor and Squirrel Hill Shadyside types - not a headbanger shop at all. Oriental carpets and the place smells like wood (guitars) COOL!
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