Music Manufacturing
Yoshitada Hoshino is the president of Hoshino Gakki Company, a music company that has remained in his family since first opening in 1908 to sell sheet music in Japan. The distribution segment of the business began to grow throughout the next hundred years. Along the way the company developed the...
Masashi Miyazawa formed the Miyazawa Flutes Company in 1969. Mr. Miyazawa founded the company with a dream to create a better instrument. With his background in the design and manufacture of professional flutes, Miyazawa successfully brought together traditional craftsmanship with advanced...
Stan Lindenbaum grew up in Brooklyn and developed many thoughts and ideas about selling. While working for several different industries during his career, Stan studied the idea of incentive marketing, a concept that worked out well for him in his years in the music industry. He worked for the...
Mike Adams has a background in mechanical engineering as well as manufacturing, which seemed to fit perfectly when he began working with Bob Moog back in 2002. Bob was looking to expand his small company and to finally complete work on the Minimoog Voyager, which he has been working on for several...
Richard Taninbaum grew up in a musical family. His father, Wolf, played saxophone for many top big bands during the Swing Era and later created his own mouthpiece company. So, it was no surprise that Richard’s drum studio career was highlighted with the creation of Rhythm Tech, a percussion...
Steve Oppenheimer grew up playing music, as did his younger brother, known as Larry The O. Steve was seven when he made his TV debut singing “Big Rock Candy Mountain” on a children’s show. After high school he toured with several bands before attending Berklee College of Music in Boston. His...
David McAllister grew up in Eastern Canada as a child of the 60s and 70s and a big fan of the music of the era. He studied sales and marketing, getting a job in one of the country’s largest food companies before meeting Bob Zildjian in 1984. Bob had just formed SABIAN and was looking for a sales...
Elliott Rubinson fell in love with the bass at the age of 12 and played it every waking moment as he grew up in Queens, New York, in the rock era of the 1960s. He toured with a number of bands and eventually decided to start his own music store in Florida so he could spend his days immersed in...
Mitsuru Umemura is the eleventh President of the Yamaha Corporation. During his NAMM Oral History interview he provided details about the development of Yamaha beginning in 1887. He likes to explain the four main elements of Yamaha’s rich history beginning with the craftsmanship of instrument-...
Hiroo Okabe is the Director and Managing Executive Officer of Yamaha’s Musical Instrument Business Group. During his NAMM Oral History interview he provided the history of how Mr. Torakusu Yamaha began his career in the music industry by first repairing a reed organ and later, in 1900, introduced...