Music Lesson Programs
Diane Sparks and her brother, Donnie, formed a successful singing group in the 1960s. Donnie & Diane performed and recorded a string of hits, most written by Donnie. Diane's husband, Roger Sparks, played lead guitar in the Donnie and Diane band from 1968 to 1974. The Donnie and Diane band was...
Roger Sparks started teaching guitar lessons in the wake of the Beatles boom in 1964. Just four years later he and his wife, Diane, opened Sparks Music in Arkansas City, Kansas. In 1974, the store held its grand opening at its current location of 315 South Summit in Arkansas City. The couple had...
Tim Spicer studied special education in college and has applied his passion of helping others and his love of music when he opened a music store in 2012. Spicer's Music focuses on offering its customers with a wide range of quality products as well as carefully constructed lessons that meet the...
Chico Fernandez was born in Toronto and began playing drums at the age of three! He studied piano when he was eight and later reconnected with the drums, which he played in local bands both live and in the recording studios. He later moved to Los Angeles where he opened a music teaching studio. ...
Wendy Hutchings, along with her sister, Amanda, and daughter, Jody Whyte, are the owners of Hutchings Piano. The store was established by her father back in 1955 when he started selling pianos to his students. He took Wendy along to visit factories in China in the early 1970s, where he made...
Jody Whyte recalls fondly sitting in the family store as a child watching her grandfather repair pianos and then he would make banana pancakes for her. Those memories took on extra meaning after his passing and when her mother, Wendy Hutchings, asked if Jody would join her in the business and apply...
Frank Corniola was born in Italy and moved to Australia when he was seven years old and he began playing drums professionally as a teenager. Like many gigging musicians, Frank took a day job at a music store when he was not out touring. That first job, at Sutton's Music in Melbourne providing drum...
Mark Gibson is the songwriter and composer who wrote a series of method books for the Australian music market. Back in 1997, Mark established the Encore Music school that combined lesson programs with the latest in technology to engage the students. Based on the lessons he created for his students...
Keith Huxtable worked for Rose Music (now Yamaha) in Melbourne for 13 years beginning in the early-1970s. Starting in the service department and moving into product management, he witnessed the rapid development of electronic keyboards, MIDI, and synthesizers during that era. A special memory was a...
Bob Giacoletti and his wife Eleanor opened a small music school in 1978 that soon took on a line of instruments and accessories to become a full line retail store. The store moved to downtown Carlsbad, California in 1982. A year later Bob hired a young man named Roy Good who was interested in...