Coronavirus-driven sales of musical instruments up, including in Cape

Bill Shivelbine said the pandemic has been a challenging time for family-owned and operated Shivelbine’s Music Store of Cape Girardeau, which has served customers in Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois from its downtown location at 533 Broadway since 1949.

Musical instrument sales are soaring across the country as people continue to use their time at home to try something new, including a frequent “bucket list” item of learning to play an instrument.

Careful to acknowledge the awfulness of COVID-19 and the pain and suffering it has engendered, the amiable Shivelbine nevertheless indicated a silver lining may be seen in tragedy if a person looks for one.

“It’s been a rough year, and in times of trouble, people turn to God and to the church,” Shivelbine said, “but they also turn to music.

“(Music) is a universal language, it speaks to everybody, because a G-chord is a G-chord everywhere,” he added.

“It’s a beautiful thing to hear older people, especially, say that they’ve always wanted to learn to play something and now, they have the time to do it,” reflected Shivelbine.

Shivelbine co-owns the business, the leading source of band instruments in the region, with his cousin Mike Shivelbine.

A third member of the ownership triumvirate, Mike’s brother, Greg, died suddenly in June.

Reluctant to discuss sales figures, Bill Shivelbine admitted the store has sold “a lot of instruments,” specifically mentioning guitars.

“I’d call our sales ‘solid,’ particularly with instruments you can learn on your own — like a guitar or keyboards,” he said.

“Guitars essentially sold out because of the pandemic,” Shivelbine said, noting industry sales of the stringed instrument, in all of its forms, have gone up 300%.

“Demand is high and inventory is low,” adding that while Shivelbine’s has long maintained a good supply chain, he admits there are instruments the store ordered as long ago as July he doesn’t expect to see arrive until the third quarter of this year.

“Things are starting to come back a little,” Shivelbine said, and he pointed to a remarkably durable portion of the store’s business.

“We have retained 85% of our (music) lessons, which students watch on Zoom,” he said.

Despite all the fear, Shivelbine indicated, students are keeping up with their tutorials.

“Frankly, I find this mind-boggling,” he added.