<p>Thanks, Odyssey, for the Dillons tip. They’re only about 25 miles from me, so I’ll have no problem buying in person. I agreee, Binx, that it can be tricky to buy something like a musical instrument on line. I bought my D both a mandolin & tenor banjo through ebay, and we just lucked out. Neither cost an arm & a leg, and they’re not her main instruments. Just for fun because the fingering is the same as the violin. </p>
<p>Son’s loaner FH is a double. I think I’ll print out a few Dillons choices to show the teacher. </p>
<p>As a non-musician mom of musical kids I have developed an appreciation for how tough it must be for non-English speaking immigrants who have kids in the American school system.</p>
<p>Mother of a horn student here. Our local middle school provided horns for those who wanted to play it. Some of the students had their own (some were single horns; a few were cheap off brand ones off of ebay–two mistakes we knew not to make). </p>
<p>But once it was clear that she wanted to continue the instrument in high school, she insisted we buy a new instrument for her, a Conn, silver, detachable bell, backpack looking case (she was very particular–had to special order it).</p>
<p>I checked out online prices and then went down to our local music store. Turns out that his prices were very competitive, so we just bought it locally.</p>
<p>The nice thing is that the marching horn is different from the concert horn, and the school provides the marching horn. So her lovely concert horn doesn’t get banged up from marching.</p>