How long has it been since you visited a music store? That question used to have a fairly straightforward answer, but not anymore. Although a traditional music store can be found by looking in your local yellow pages, the term today has at least 3 different meanings. You can buy music from all of them, but the form you get it in could be completely different. The traditional music supply store will sell you supplies like guitar picks, sheet music, drum sets, and CDs. The online music store sells many of the same items as the traditional, but because you can choose from hundreds of different stores, your choices and numbers of selections are much higher. The final music store is actually a downloading site for all of the songs and albums from artists new and old.

For personalized service you probably cannot beat your local music store. They may rent instruments for your school band and they can help you pick the perfect fit and grip on a new guitar. The problems come because they may not have the inventory that you can find online.

You can find not one music store online, but hundreds. Some are general interest stores which offer hundreds of different products to choose from. Others may offer single items or families of items such as stringed instruments, or sheet music. The advantage of shopping through an online store is that if you dont find what you are looking for at one store, you can look at another store. You can compare prices quickly and easily. Just make sure that any online store that you are using has a good warranty and return policy. They should also offer good customer service in case you have questions or problems.

The last store which may be the most popular these days is the downloading store. ITunes has one, so do MSN and Napster to name just a couple. Make sure that when you sign up for a subscription you understand the terms and that the site is compatible with the system or MP3 player that you currently own.