Acoustic Strings of New England

Yesterday I visited Acoustic Strings of New England to buy fingerboard tape. This business is located at 191 Highland Ave, Somerville, Massachusetts, in the Somerville Armory. The Somerville location is on reduced hours during the summer, open to customers on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons. There is a second location in Keene, New Hampshire.

The shop is very welcoming and friendly, with plenty of student-level instruments on display. (I was much less intimidated than when I visited Johnson String Instrument and Carriage House Violins a couple of months ago.)

I had assumed that they had little to do during the summer, and indeed I was the only customer, but they are very busy refurbishing the student violins, violas, and cellos that were returned at the end of the school year in June. There were dozens of instruments near the workroom waiting for repairs and tuneups.

Something that caught my eye was three mandolins hanging on the wall. The shop gets mandolins made in the Czech Republic, and they are priced in the vicinity of $400. I am interested in getting a mandolin (although I don’t have time to play one right now while I’m focused on learning the cello).

As for the fingerboard tape, the shop has a drawer of rolls of fingerboard tape with designs targeted to school children. I was given two rolls at no charge, which was very kind of the shop.

My New Fingerboard Tape