First rate staff up front and excellent support staff in the back. You can get all your music needs met at Ellman's. From renting, buying, having your instrument fixed, to taking lessons, they do it all and have years of experience. read more

I was new in band and I got my trombone in the store to rent which I loved and it was so clean with that new instrument smell. They got all kinds of instruments and the staff was nice. Although I had a teacher who was mean and wasn't nice. He was nice when you meet him but when you get to know you, he's rude and gives you a attitude and he's the other reason why I quit band. His name was Luke Mallicore or something of his last name. I have a cleft pallet and he always sounded annoyed when I try to explain to him that I can't reach to certain high notes and he tells me not to do something with my mouth even though that's the only way for me to play my trombone. I wouldn't recommend to have classes with him. read more

DO NOT BRING YOUR INSTRUMENT HERE FOR REPAIRS. Took my son's alto sax in only to fix the octave key, that's it. Was serviced by a pleasant lady and was told I'd get a call the next business day with an estimate after inspection. Next day came and went with no call, so I called 2nd day and was given the estimate, told repair would take 2 weeks and authorized the work, and was told I'd be contacted when completed. After 2 1/2 weeks and no call, I called to check the status. Was told it was still in the shop and would HOPEFULLY be done at the end of the week, which would made 3 weeks total in the shop. The word HOPEFULLY was a trigger word and red flag, so I requested for a guarantee it would be done and the guy on the phone wouldn't commit to that. After 3 1/2 weeks and no call, I decide to show up in person to get the status. I was serviced by the original pleasant lady, requested a status, she checked the computer, stated she needed to call up the repair technician for a status, got on the phone with him and acknowledged to him the notes showed they told me it would be done the previous week. He tells her to tell me he will TRY to have it done SOON!!! I immediately said no that's not good enough and asked for a guaranteed date. She asked if I'd like to speak directly to the repair technician. He commenced to talk about how delicate the repair is and the time. I asked had he even started on it, he said the week after I brought it in (I don't believe that), then I asked why can't it be done by the end of that week (the 4th week), and then he starts talking about how many other instruments he has to repair. BINGO, now we get to the real problem, they can't handle the volume and don't communicate that to the customers. Then to give them a last shot at my business, I requested for priority to complete my repair (a broken octave key), since it has now been almost 4 weeks and I'm physically standing in the shop. He would NOT commit to giving me priority. TERRIBLE SERVICE and treatment of a customer given the circumstance they created! Immediately I asked if my sax was fully assembled and he answered yes (wait, I thought he started working on it??), and I requested that lady in the shop to go get it. I told the repair tech on the phone I'm taking it home and hung up. The lady came back with my sax, closed out the ticket no charge and I left. Communication, communication, communication.........they are terrible at this. There was failure at communication at every single interaction with this shop. From not communicating a REAL timeline through the door, from not communicating the real issue with my status, to not making it right. DO NOT TAKE YOUR INSTRUMENT HERE FOR REPAIR. I now see there are other bad reviews for their repair service. I wish I would had saw them before blowing a whole month with them just to still have an unrepaired sax. read more

Pete goes the extra mile for his customers. He knows wind instruments. He is a musician who knows what musicians need and has a store with excellent quality stock. Ellman's is a certified Yamaha dealer. Highly recommended read more

Ellman's Music was my first job when I was 15. I used to work in the back, cleaning the instrument rentals when they were returned by the kids for the summer. Blech. Eventually, I worked my way up to spending a couple hours of the week at the front counter selling to customers, but was still relegated to cleaning most of the time. At least I had my friend Ashley to show the disgusting stuff I found to! Ellman's is a great place to get an instrument fixed. The repair shop is phenomenal - particularly if you have a woodwind instrument. I own a professional model flute, and Paul Kober is the only person who I would ever trust to fix it. It's a great place to have your instrument fixed, and I made some lifelong friends working there too! read more

Brought my trumpet here for repairs this summer. While the work was exceptional, there were a few issues with customer service. When I dropped off my horn, I was about to leave the country for two weeks. The woman working there said that she would have to call me after a technician looked at the instrument to let me know the cost of repair. Knowing I would not be able to receive phone calls, I authorized them to do up to $150 of work to fix the issue (stuck valve). She suggested that the standard $60 cleaning would likely resolve the issue. When I returned, the work was not done even though I left it there for over two weeks. They asked me to wait a couple days which was okay, I didn't need it until the weekend anyway. When I came in to pick it up, she said the cost was $149. I asked why it was so expensive and she said that the cleaning ($60) solved the valve problem, and so the technician did a hand polish and replaced the small rubber and felt components for an additional $89. I can't really complain because I did authorize $150 but I felt that they took advantage of me because I only asked for them to resolve the valve issue and instead they just did extra work just to charge me the maximum amount. That being said, the work was exceptional and my trumpet looks and sounds better than ever. I'd recommend being very specific when asking for service. read more

Very nice people work here. Although I didn't find any classical piano music, the nice guy directed me to Beautiful Music in Downers Grove (which I see received good marks from Fresh E), which I appreciated. They do carry several racks of music for solo instuments, mostly pop. They sell and rent instruments, and I found out I can either rent my daughter an violin for $15/month or purchase one for $1500-4000. I'll go with the rental for now, but if she progresses to Paganini I'll get the good ax. read more

absolutely am very happy with customer care; attentive to detail, quick response with any concerns.. highly recommend Ellman's Music Center, love the people there read more

Excellent music store. Great staff-ask for Pete! If you need a musical instrument this is your go to place.

A lovely store. We went in about a month ago in the middle of a snow storm to get a transposed edition of a vocal solo I needed for a memorial service over that weekend. There were various sounds from lesson studios audible in the background, which brought back such fond memories of the music store where i taught voice and piano many years ago. And they were so helpful; although they admittedly didn't specialize in vocal music (more instrumental and piano), they had a new transposition program and ran it for me, and I got what I needed in the right key for an extremely reasonable price. Truly great customer service; thank you!! read more

My daughter was in an orchestra and rented a violin from Ellman's, at the end of the school year we decided not to continue. I asked the teacher how to cancel and she said to email them and return the instrument to her, which is what I did. Emailed them on June 4th, never got a reply, got another charge on my account in July. I called them and they said they were heading out that week to pick up instruments and once they had it they would refund my two payments. It is now August and I got a third charge. Called them again and was now told I have to fill out some form online or the rep won't know that he has to pick up the instrument, and that they don't have the instrument returned. So now I have paid over $52 in fees for a violin I returned, was never told to fill out the form and was promised a refund that now they do not want to honor. They told me the charges will stop once the violin is returned.....I ALREADY RETURNED IT. These people have poor customer service and obviously poor record keeping, I am irate and will tell everyone I know about how poor their service is. read more