To the Tune of His Own Beat, Bryce Raymond Opens New Store

He wanted to play the drums, but as fate would have it (and because of the fact that drums were not offered), Bryce Raymond found himself playing the saxophone in his high school’s concert band. And then came the repairs. And then the music store: Raymond Music.

Located off of Hollister Avenue, a little ways past Storke Road, lies the purveyor of instrument repair, rentals, and lessons in all things brass and woodwind. Owner Bryce Raymond — instrument repairer extraordinaire — recently held a grand opening for the music shop on April 29. But the actual vision for the store goes way back to his teenage years. It all began when his saxophone began to break, almost once a week, and he had to look for ways to fix it. So, he learned how to fix his saxophone. Once he mastered the saxophone, he began to buy used instruments, fix them, and resell them, and his entrepreneurial spirit was ignited.

“Throughout college, I did more. I had a small table that I set up inside my closet in my dorm room … I did repairs in this small closet. During that time I had a friend who was the repair tech at one of the local stores. He said ‘well, come on in and you can use my tools and I can show you stuff’ … I figured out I really liked doing repairs and buying and selling stuff was actually a lot of fun. I just did that in all my free time. I was spending more time on that than any schooling.”

His mini business now successful in college, he needed to find a way to put everything he knew about instrument repair into something concrete. Enter Santa Barbara’s Nick Rail and Nick Rail Music.

Raymond was no exception to the pandemic’s employment crisis, and even with his degree in cyber security, he was having issues finding jobs. He eventually took the first position offered. By pure happenstance, that was an apprenticeship with Rail.

“He showed me the last little bit of what I needed to know and hone in the last bit of skills before he retired,” said Raymond.

Now that he had the confidence, knowledge, experience, and support, Raymond was on his way to opening his own store — which is exactly what he did.

Raymond Music offers four main pillars: repairs, sales, lessons, and rentals. With Raymond well-versed in almost every instrument (“I play just about everything,” he said), he teaches most of the lessons in the sound-proofed rooms his shop offers.

“I’m trying not to go too hard into any particular area because I want to be flexible … Right now, it’s the repairs … but it’ll probably shift and change as we go along.”

His absolute favorite part about it all: getting to interact with customers, from repairs to lessons to good old sales advice. His musicianship and business qualities go hand-in-hand and “being in music without actually having to play music is super awesome.”

Check out Raymond Music at 7320 Hollister Ave # 6 in Goleta, raymondmusic.com.