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Osmun Music

Dealers in fine brass and woodwind instruments

By Dr. James Heywood Alexander, Professor Emeritus, Cleveland State University

The firm of Osmun Music builds and repairs professional grade wind and brass instruments. Founded in 1976 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the company grew steadily. By 1992 sales had reached the million-dollar mark. Having outgrown its previous business space in Belmont, Massachusetts, the firm moved to spacious new quarters in Belmont. The staff now includes a dozen employees. The company publishes an international newsletter, maintains a home page on the Internet, and sponsors master classes by prestigious performers at its headquarters.

Responsible for this growth is the company’s president, Robert Osmun. A former horn player who came to Boston to study at the New England Conservatory, Osmun apprenticed with William Tottle of Tottle and Son and subsequently accepted a position with Schilke Music Products in Chicago.

Starting originally as an instrument repair business, the fledgling company that Osmun founded soon began selling new brass instruments as well. Starting with Paxman French horns, Osmun Brass, as it was then called, began to develop an extensive inventory featuring the best new brass instruments available. It became a major Yamaha dealer for professional lines. Recently it has also been selling instruments made in Germany by Engelbert Schmid. The business has grown to include woodwinds and instrument manufacture. A major market for Osmun trombones is in Japan.

Osmun points out that, although the nature of the professional music business has been under stress recently, there will continue to be good opportunities for those who serve committed players well. He sees the Company serving a top-level market with really fine products, backing it up with detailed knowledge and dedicated support. That’s what our business is about.

Interview with Robert Osmun

Mr. Osmun, you are the President of a company serving international needs for professional brass and woodwinds. Would you describe briefly in your own words the nature of your business?

We sell, service, repair and modify professional grade wind instruments, build trombones and provide a wide assortment of accessories and other music related items to our customers. We try to serve the high end of the market, professional players, advanced amateurs, conservatory students. Many of our product lines are products that are difficult or impossible to get from other places. So we call ourselves pretty much a "niche" market or a "niche" business.

The business was known initially as Osmun Brass Instruments. When did you change the name to Osmun Music and why?

We changed the name shortly before our move from Belmont to Arlington in 1995. We decided to change from Osmun Brass Instruments to Osmun Music for two reasons: (1) because the name Osmun Brass Instruments was just too long and too big a mouthful to handle; and, (2) because we felt there was a lot of opportunity in the woodwind side of the business that we had been pretty much ignoring. Changing the name to Osmun Music just made it less specific and gave us the potential of branching out into the woodwind areas or any other music areas we wanted to get into.

How has your business grown from its inception until now?

It began in 1976 simply as a repair business in a loft in Cambridge that I shared with two flute makers. It continued in that way for several years in Cambridge, later in Foxboro, later still in Belmont specifically as a repair business. Then about 1982 or thereabouts I decided to start selling some instruments. I started with Paxman horns and gradually increased other lines until the sales became an important part of the business.

How many employees do you have a present and what do they do, i.e. how is your organization structured?

Currently we have nine or ten employees. It tends to vary from month to month. Of those, counting myself, we have four people in the repair department, soon to be five people. We have four people in sales and we have a bookkeeper and we have my wife who is the treasurer of the company. My wife and I essentially run it as a partnership. The sales and repair operations report to us.

Is it true that you have opted to direct your attention first and foremost to professional instrumentalists, but that you also work with schools?

The school business is a very crowded business that is well served by a lot of different companies in our area. By concentrating on professional instruments and on service we have a knowledge component which other businesses have a hard time offering. We tend to confine ourselves to those schools that are interested in a kind of higher quality service that we can offer and try also to extend our reach to the students through private music teachers.

You have had ties to Japan through being one of the largest professional Yamaha dealers in the country. You also have represented other non-American concerns, such as Paxman in England. What problems and opportunities do you see in positioning yourself internationally?

I think Yamaha is in a different situation from some of the other companies that we represent in that our dealings are with Yamaha Corporation USA, which is a completely separate company from the Japanese Yamaha company. Yamaha USA will buy its product from Japan, and we buy a product from them, much the same way the large Japanese car companies have American subsidiaries that actually run their American operations. We're also the sole US distributor of [German-made] Schmid horns and one of two distributors of Paxman and Alexander horns.

Osmun Music is now providing trombones for the Japanese market, and the demand is strong. How do you see such markets developing in the future?

I think there are really unlimited possibilities in the export market, both in Japan and the

Far East generally and in Europe. Right now the pricing structure in the United States is substantially lower than that in the Far East and Europe, so our instruments, even at prices that are in the US double or more what competing instruments are selling for are directly competitive in Japan. The Japanese appreciate high quality and they're willing to pay for it and they also appreciate exclusivity and the notion of the high quality product that's available in limited quantities as appealing to them. They seem to be happy to buy as much of it as we can produce.

The Korean and Taiwanese markets are very strong. Those are countries where education is very highly valued and people have high incomes. They're a natural market for the kind of products that we sell.

The same is true to a lesser extent in Europe. The price disparity isn't as much and the access to the international market is greater. And, again, we haven't had enough product to seriously investigate selling it in Europe, but I think that it will sell there very well, too.

You represent the Company personally at a number of conventions and other types of meetings in this country and abroad. How important is such personal exposure?

I think it's very important. I think that the basic product we have to sell is knowledge, and

I think that by presenting myself as a knowledgeable person who's interested in the same musical things that the performers are interested in I build my own credibility. Also, I think it's really important to be out there and see what people are interested in and see where they're going so that hopefully we can meet their needs and hopefully position ourselves a little bit ahead of the curve.

Besides personal word of mouth, you also put out a national newsletter and have a home page on the Internet. How do you see this kind of written advertising, if we may call it that, developing in the future?

We're hoping very much that the Internet becomes a viable medium for getting out our message, primarily because it's much less expensive than efforts like the newsletter. It reaches potentially a wider variety of people and it can be updated and added to on a continuous basis.

Furthermore, it will essentially involve a dialog between us presenting things that we have to offer and want to sell and customers asking questions and asking for products. I think it is very mutually beneficial.

The newsletter, of course, we've been doing that for years, and it's fun to do. A lot of people look forward to it. However, I think we're going to be doing a lot less of that in the future primarily because of cost. Also, the sort of topical stuff we like to put into it tends to be out of date by the time the newsletter goes out to print.

You recently expanded and moved the business into new quarters in Arlington. Your beautiful new facilities will serve you well for the foreseeable future. Do you have any comments about your recent move?

Yes, I wish we'd done it five years ago, or ten. We now have enough space to do what we want to do. We have a nice display area that helps sell things just because the stuff is out where people can see it, and they [are there] in pleasant surroundings. We have a large room we can use for recitals and master classes and we have a large workshop where we can spread out and where we can set up the machinery we need and the things we need to do the work the way we want to do it.

One of the things you have instigated is a series of master classes with highly respected players who come through Boston, often to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. How are these working out and will you expand upon this possibility in the future?

Yes, the master classes are working out very nicely. I do it as a labor of love, really; there are no financial rewards in doing it. We've had some very good people who have come primarily because of my personal contacts with them, and, after a year of doing that we're now at the stage where we're starting to have people asking us to come and play here, which is very pleasant. I think it builds credibility.

What major opportunities do you see down the road? How will your company continue to expand and grow? Do you want it to expand?

I see major opportunities in the manufacturing of instruments. We are building more and more of the trombone components ourselves. As we build more we have more control over them, and we make an even better product. I think we'll be doing more and more manufacturing as we go on. We're also getting busier in the woodwind part of the business.

What characteristics are you looking for in recruiting employees?

We find that the single most important characteristic is the ability to get along with coworkers and to contribute as part of a team. So we look for people who will get along and work to build the operation as opposed to protecting their own turf. [We look for] people who have agile minds, who think on their feet and can roll with the punches. Most musicians tend to be smart people.

Obviously in the repair shop the skills are very specific and it's always been our policy that, when somebody came along and had what I thought were the requisite skills, to hire them. We're looking for people who are going to be with us for the long term.

What is your own assessment about the market you serve? What changes do you see in this scene on the horizon and how will they effect your business?

I think that it's true that the professional music business is a shrinking business and, as the level of educational attainment in the country continues to drop, the interest of people in supporting music organizations continues to dwindle. [Music] as an avocation is still very strong. I think you're going to see more and more of these amateur musicians, who are a great market for us because they've got stable, well paying jobs and a lot of disposable income and a strong interest. I think in the time I've been in business I've seen the type of people involved in the music business change. Their wants and needs and aspirations are different from what they were a generation ago. And, again, I think we need to serve them on the upper edge with quality products and with quality service and well chosen, thoughtful accessory products. [We will continue to serve a] top-level market with really fine products, backing it up with detailed knowledge and dedicated support. That's what our business is about.

PHONE: 1 (781) 646-5756

FAX: 1 (781) 646-2480

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