{"id":84806,"date":"2016-04-26T06:01:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T10:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=84806"},"modified":"2016-04-26T08:28:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T12:28:33","slug":"harrys-guitar-shop-three-decades-and-counting-of-kinship-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2016\/04\/26\/harrys-guitar-shop-three-decades-and-counting-of-kinship-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry’s Guitar Shop: Three Decades and Counting of Kinship & Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first in our newest series, Strictly Business, featuring interviews with Raleigh’s many small business owners. Last\u00a0week, we sat down with\u00a0Harry Tueting, the long-time owner of Harry’s Guitar Shop to\u00a0talk about guitars, his new shop and the\u00a0important role music plays in one’s life.<\/em><\/p>\n

Harry\u2019s Guitar Shop has been a haven for Raleigh guitar enthusiasts for more than thirty years.<\/p>\n

Owner Harry Tueting opened for business in downtown Raleigh, starting at one location on West Johnson Street and then moving on to Glenwood South\u00a0where he repurposed\u00a0a\u00a0building that housed the Bausch & Lomb lens grinding factory in 1988. Last fall, the shop moved into its current location in Pylon Park off Blue Ridge Avenue.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

MJ Vieweg<\/p>

The newest home of Harry’s Guitar Shop<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a larger space, inside and out,\u201d Tueting said. \u201cParking is difficult downtown and the 16 allotted parking spaces weren\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 566 Pylon Drive location is spacious. Two large front rooms, a hallway with several small practice rooms leads back to an area that combines a kitchen\/breakroom, storage and a repair workshop. The musical inventory is displayed on the walls of the front rooms.<\/p>\n

The guitars (other stringed instruments-mandolins, banjos and ukuleles are displayed as well) are beautiful. The elegant figure-eight shape repeats across the walls yet the different shadings of the wood used to make the guitars reveal grain patterns and colors which gleam and glow.<\/p>\n

But 28 years in one place has had impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were one of the first businesses to take over and revive building space in the area,\u201d Tueting said of the Glenwood South location. \u201cIn 1988, that area was a lot \u201cslower\u201d and it was not easy to attract customers to it at first. But that did change fairly quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tueting points out there were a lot a homeless folk in that area and he discovered that some of them were attracted to the music. He welcomed them into the shop and to play guitar if they could. He wasn\u2019t surprised to find that many of them could play.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/a>

MJ Vieweg<\/p>

Harry Tuering sitting in his guitar shop<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMusic is a just such a part of life and people often get into it for their own well-being. Not for fame and riches. Trust me on that one,\u201d he implored.<\/p>\n

Tueting had his first guitar when he was eight years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a Harmony Stella \u2014 a small \u00be-size model which cost $28 dollars brand-new. And it was terrible! Hard to play, hard to tune. But when you are young, you don\u2019t know any better.<\/p>\n

“Now, even the low end models play better. The woodworking, the machining and even the glue is better. And the processes continue to improve. The market is fairly big and it’s more accessible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tueting\u00a0continued to play as he grew up and eventually started to play gigs as part of an acoustic guitar duo in public. It was driving home from one of these gigs, talking about the hassles of getting gear from suppliers throughout the state with his partner, that he\u00a0spoke fated words; \u201cI think I can do it better.” His friend agreed. And now Harry\u2019s Guitar Shop is in its third decade.<\/p>\n

Tueting says the guitar is an \u201ceveryman\u2019s\u201d instrument. Opening the shop has affords Tueting the opportunity to foster a community of guitar players and feed the vibrant music scene that exists in the Raleigh area.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

James Borden \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p>

The former home of Harry’s Guitar Shop on Glenwood<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n

Maybe Raleigh isn’t known for music in such the way as a town like Austin, Texas is but as Tueting explains, \u201cAustin identifies itself as a music town. There are a lot of people in Raleigh who play the guitar (or the mandoline, banjo or ukulele) and want to have fun doing it. There are those who want to play their guitar a certain way but don\u2019t know how \u2014 taking lessons solves that.\u201d<\/p>\n

From day one, lessons have been offered at the shop, for \u2018anything you can do on a guitar\u2019 save for classical \u2014 which requires an enormous skill set. All the shop employees play. Tueting has on staff instructors available for lessons, knowledgeable craftsmen for repairs and pre-sale preparation.<\/p>\n

Tueting sees a broad age range of people come into the shop. \u201cSome coming in now are the grandchildren of customers,\u201d he said. He notes that since the 90s there are more young women who play. \u201cTheir presence is really strong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Customers come to the store for more than strings and straps. \u201cThe store helped to build a community within the [Raleigh] community. Guitar players are welcome here anytime and doing business is not the only reason they come. The store is not like a shoe store, offering one thing. Music is bigger than that. It is a part of you. Customers, staff \u2014 we have a kinship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic, playing music, makes people feel good and people like to share that with others,” Tueting said.<\/p>\n

“I like the way we’re able to support that through this shop for going on 31 years,\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Harry's<\/a>

MJ Vieweg<\/p>

Harry’s Guitar Shop has been in business for more than 30 years<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Record sat down with Harry Tueting, long-time owner of Harry’s Guitar Shop to talk about guitars, his new shop and the important role music plays in one’s life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2623816,"featured_media":84811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,1940],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2623816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}