Beginner Instruments on a budget

[nafmeadmin]

Hello all. Middle School band director here. I’m in a lower income area and most of my students are unable to pay for their own instruments. Furthermore I don’t have a lot of money to work with so my question is: how much is the quality going to suffer if I buy the cheapest instruments I can (Etude, Allora, etc.)? I’m a saxophone player and I’ve tried the lower end saxes…they aren’t that bad considering the price, so I’m mostly looking for input on cheaper clarinets, flutes, trumpets, trombones in particular. Obviously you get what you pay for, but we’re in a real tight financial situation and I want everyone to at least have an instrument to play. Thanks for any input you have!

[nafmeadmin]

For the price of a brand new, lower quality brand, you could easily find something on the used market that is a great instrument. We were in quite a bind with instruments going into this school year, specifically low brass. I hit up Ebay and was able to get 7 baritones and 2 tubas for 5,000 dollars. Every instrument was in very good shape, some of them were almost brand new. Everything was Yamaha except for one king and 2 jupiter baritones. Included in this was a Yamaha 4-valve euphonium as well.

For example Etude flutes are $150 new and gemeinhardt 2sp can be found used easily for less and under $100 with some patience.

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