Established 1969

Our History. 1969 - Today

The Musicians Centre was started in 1969 by Kenneth and Marjorie North. The story goes that after walking out of his joinery job, Ken happened past a vacant shop in Bradford city centre and decided he wanted to start a music shop. He placed a deposit there and then for the let of the property and went home to tell Marj, his wife and their four children that he had left his job and they were going to start a music shop. Ken was a well resepected drummer on the "Big Band" scene and known well to local musicians.

After a year in Bradford city centre the Musicians Centre had expanded and moved to a large premises on Cavendish Street Keighley. Here they stayed for ten years serving musicians from local and afar. These premises saw the start of lessons with a team of experienced teachers built up to teach various instruments including Organ, Drums, Guitar and much more. The shop was run by the full family, Kenneth and Marj at the helm and sons Ken, Alan, Keith and daughter Jayne. During the 1980s recession the Musicians Centre downsized to a smaller premises on Cavendish Street but continued to offer lessons. Around 1990 the Musicians Centre moved to a bigger premises in Keighley Railway Station where the Keighley store now runs.

Sadly in 2000, Kenneth passed away and the business was taken over by daughter Jayne and her son and daughter, Michael and Marie. Michael and Marie were fresh out of music college and we're keen to carry on the business, Marjorie went in to retirement and the Keighley store expanded to stock a wide range of instruments and to teach many more people music. In 2007 another store was opened in Bradford city centre, about 300 metres from where the original store opened and a smaller store in Hebden Bridge was closed, lessons were learnt during the Hebden Bridge shop's existance that staying local and helping serve the areas known was the most important part of running the stores. Now managed by Tom, the Bradford store has grown from strength to strength and become an important part of the Bradford music scene.

All shops continue to thrive and serve their local musical communities. Musicians Centre staff feel like there is more to the business than just selling musical instruments to people. Being deeply involved in the music scene locally and helping people with advice, lessons and workshops is as important as sales and is the reason Musicians Centre has now been open longer than 40 years.

Our Values

We never knowingly mark something as in stock if it isn't.
We have talked to people about buying instruments online and the biggest complaint we hear is when they buy something and are then told later that the item isn't in stock. We have worked hard to try and avoid this so all our web stock levels actually reflect the numbers of stock we are currently holding. On very rare occasions the website may show something in stock which we don't actually have, we are going to work very hard to make sure this doesn't happen.

All instruments are thorougly checked and setup before reaching you.
It would be nice if all instruments came to us from manufacturers set up and ready to go. Unfortunately this is rarely the case so we put any instrument about to be delivered through a rigorous test inspection and full setup before shipping it to you.

We are always more than happy to advise and help.
If you're unsure about the specification of something, want advice on anything or need more information about a product we sell do get in contact with us. We actually much prefer it when we can have chat with people who are wanting to buy an instrument, it makes us feel like we've done a better job!