The Optimist

Quinn Sternberg

Staff Writer

In Bloomington’s downtown area, business is booming due to the reappearance of thousands of students on the Indiana University campus. Just walking down the sidewalk, you can notice the resurgence of many stores that experienced a hard, student-less summer. All is well and normal downtown, except that there are unfamiliar green and pink “store closing” signs on the windows of Smith-Holden, a landmark for Bloomington music.

Smith-Holden, one of Bloomington’s most popular music stores and provider of music lessons for the last 47 years, will be closing soon. Hundreds of students will need to find new teachers, many teachers will need to find a new place to work, and countless customers will need a new place to buy their musical equipment. “It sucks,” said Maddie Nahas, a student at both Bloomington South and Smith-Holden. “I’m used to seeing it on that corner.” For Nahas and many other citizens of Bloomington, it will be hard to imagine anything but the memorable music shop on the corner of Kirkwood and Gentry.

“We’ve taught 200 to 300 students every month for the past 47 years,” said George Holden, Smith-Holden’s long-time owner. In those years, the teachers of Smith-Holden have taught thousands of students how to play instruments. “It was a lot of fun,” said South teacher Steve Sobiech, foreign language, of his time teaching at Smith-Holden. Sobiech taught ten to fifteen students a week how to play guitar, bass, and mandolin there for two years. “I don’t know what to say about it,” said Sobiech, “but I’m sad to see them go under.”

“Everyone was really nice,” said Nahas about the Smith-Holden teachers and staff. “It was really cool.” Nahas started playing guitar three months ago, and will already need to find a new place to learn. Fortunately, Nahas’ teacher has informed her of a new store opening, which could be the location of thousands of lessons to come for the former students of Smith-Holden.

Though Smith Holden appeared to have a lot of business, maintaining a music store in these times is difficult to say the least. One element that contributed to the store’s closure is the difficulty of competing with internet sales. Internet music businesses undercut Smith-Holden and many other music stores’ prices, and has many more instruments, equipment, and music available. According to Holden the recession did not hit Smith-Holden as much as it hit other music stores, but it could not have helped either.

After Smith-Holden closes there will be a hole in both the lives of the store’s staff, students, and customers, and the heart of downtown Bloomington. “A lot of people have come to express their surprise about the store closing,” Holden said. He plans to spend his time fishing and golfing when he no longer owns the landmark music store. As Holden moves on to a more relaxing life, Bloomington will move on to different music stores. “It’s time for a change in my life,” said Holden. “but I will miss it.”