Biz brings music to
Plainview and beyond
Paul Effman Music is a family-owned and operated business headquartered in Plainview that has been bringing music to the New York masses for 35 years and counting.
Hutch Effman, a Huntington resident, runs the day-to-day operations of Paul Effman Music. His father, Paul, originally started the eponymous business in 1980 and since its inception, it’s been centered around providing music programs to schools that are sorely lacking in that area of their curriculum, Hutch said.
“We provide the teachers, we provide the instruments and those students pay tuition to us to be in the program,” he said. “We essentially create music programs for schools that don’t have them. The majority of them are private schools and Catholic schools—schools that don’t have the budget for an in-house music teacher.”
Paul Effman Music’s Plainview location, which functions as their main headquarters as well as a walk-in retail store, is located at 600 Woodbury Rd. In addition, they have other New York locations in Lagrangeville and Poughkeepsie as well.
In their retail store, they offer a variety of goods and services, including instrument sales, accessories, books, individual one-on-one lessons and anything else an aspiring or professional musician could ever want or need.
If that wasn’t enough, Paul Effman Music also provides a wide array of instrument rentals as well, using top-notch brands such as Yamaha and Eastman to ensure the highest of quality. This is a service that they have recently been looking to expand upon with local public schools in the area, Hutch said.
“In the past couple of years we’ve really been wanting to cater to the local public school districts around here, such as the one that I went to—I’m an alumni of Syosset—and we are offering instrument rentals to their students who participate in their music programs,” he said. “Our one and only goal in doing that, and creating all of these stores and retail locations, is to give the students the best possible instruments and experience that you can get for very competitive prices. We really want to make sure that music is put into the hands of any kid who wants it.”
Instruments that Paul Effman Music offers cover anything you’d encounter in your typical school band and orchestra program, including (but not limited to) flutes, clarinets, trumpets, saxophones, trombones, violins, violas, cellos and a variety of percussion implements.
Hutch notes that, while they love their current Plainview location and have no desire to leave, the business is nonetheless growing to the point that expansion—either of the building itself or the establishment of a nearby subsidiary location—will be needed to accommodate their vast stores of musical instruments. A simple stroll through the virtual labyrinth of cases stacked to the ceiling throughout Paul Effman Music’s basement says it all in that regard.
“It’s feeling very tight in here, but that’s a good thing and we’re happy about that,” Hutch said. “But we’d definitely like to be able to add more square footage or space, but there’s no plans yet.”
Hutch’s father, Paul, a Syosset resident and a musician his entire life, still has a hand in running the business. Growing up in such an environment, Hutch said he knew early on the direction his life would be taking and that direction would be following in his father’s footsteps. It was a calling that would see the entire family involved—his brother, sister and mother all work there—and that fact is something that always makes it a pleasure to come into work every morning, Hutch said.
“It’s the best. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I couldn’t see myself doing anything but this and fortunately we are a very tight-knit family,” he said. “We love each other so we make it work and we are local to Plainview and its surrounding communities for generations now and we really appreciate being able to do what we love for a living.”
If you want to find out more about Paul Effman Music, visit www.pemusic.com.
