Why Buy Canadian Products?

                It might seem impossible when you think about trying to fill your house or your garage or even your tool shed with Canadian made products. That’s because it is impossible. But there are lots of products out there that are made in Canada and rival the quality of products made by larger international and global companies. If we want to express our patriotism, there’s no better way to do so than to support our country in every way we can, and keeping our hard earned money within our country is a great way to do this.

                When you purchase Canadian made products you’re directly affecting our economy in positive ways. A Canadian company making large profits means more tax revenues to be used towards improving our communities. It also means that the profits that the company makes, as well as the wages the employees earn, can be cycled back into our communities and spent within our country. But most importantly, supporting Canadian manufacturing provides our citizens with jobs. Between 2003 and 2008, 350,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Canada. If we continue to sacrifice quality to save money, we will maintain this trend until we’re all homeless. But if we make the choice to spend more money for something made with the quality of Canadian craftsmanship, we’ll all prosper.

                Buying goods that are made in Canada is also a great way to maintain a greener Earth. There are much less emissions from transporting products within our country than there are from transporting the same products across the globe.  Not only does longer distance shipping use more fossil fuels, but it also uses twice as much packaging, much of which cannot be recycled.  In Canada, we have strict environmental regulations that make it easier for a consumer to keep a close eye on the companies that we deal with.

                But the real reason we should buy Canadian made products is because we do everything better than everyone else does. It’s that simple. At Simply Music we carry several great Canadian brands including Godin and Larrivee. If you haven’t heard of them or tried one out, you probably should.

                Godin has been building guitars since 1972. They have six factories, most of which are in Quebec. These six smaller factories provide a more intimate working environment between the workers that rely on this work to support their communities, and it shows in the finished product. Godin has several lines of hand crafted acoustic and electric guitars, including Seagull, Simon and Patrick, Norman, Art and Lutherie, Richmond and more. Before Godin began manufacturing guitars, they were crafting necks and bodies and selling them to established companies. Unfortunately it must remain a secret which companies, but you’re most likely playing with a Godin neck or body if you have an expensive guitar that was made a few decades ago ; )

                Jean Larrivee started building guitars in the late sixties and continues to craft some of the finest guitars available. In 1982 Larrivee set up a factory in Vancouver where they continue to build guitars today.  In 2001 they set up a factory in California, but continue to use woods and materials from North West Canada. If you haven’t tried one of these guitars you really should.

                So why should we buy Canadian products? Because we’re Canadian, and our products are much better than anyone else’s. For a list of Canadian made products that you may not know of, visit www.buycanadianfirst.ca/productcategories. 

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The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

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Ben Hummel is one of our fine guitar teachers here at Simply Music.  He has been rockin' out on the guitar since he was 13 years old.  He is able to play and teach a variety of styles including classic rock, any of the country genres, Christian worship songs, and much more. He's a big fan of live concerts and loves talking about undiscovered (non-mainstream) rock 'n roll bands.

Justin moved to Fort St. John from Niagara Falls to teach music with us. He has played with many excellent musicians in a variety of bands. Justin specializes in classical and folk, he teaches beginner, intermediate and advanced guitar as well as beginner drums, bass, and piano. Justin is very musically talented and Simply Music is very privileged to have him with us! Justin studied music for years with a renowned classical guitarist in Niagara Falls Ontario at the Bond School of Music. You might catch Justin around town drumming for local artists or playing some of his original music. Justin recently had the privilege to play with Jenny Jarnagin, a Phoenix based musician that grew up in Fort St. John. 

Paulette is the manager of Simply Music and is a licensed educator with the world renowned Kindermusik program.  In her spare time she cycles, trains for half marathons, enjoys her fresh, green drinks, spends time with her nieces and nephews, goes to movies and has the odd Frap, yum, yum!!  Oh yeah, must not forget playing bass guitar for a band in her church. 

Paulette, a Saskachewanite until the age of 17, was born the eldest in a family of 5 siblings.  As another generation of musicians, they knew they had a reputation to uphold with Elvis Presley running not too far before them in their family tree.   Paulette's earliest musical memories were the tambourine the school ukulele/ and recorder.  There was no such thing as the Kindermusik Program back then so you did what you could to develop your musicality at a young age.  She remembers lining up in a row with all the neighborhood kids taking turns playing the tambourine to her dad's foot stomping.  Another thing worth mentioning was that her family sang all the time, whether it was over the dish pan or in the car (work, play, or gatherings) but always on every road trip they took (there were no iPhones or Nintendos… it was all about creating your own entertainment). 

As she grew into a preteen, she remembers having a great desire to play the piano but her family did not own one.  She remembers trying to figure out how songs would be played as she listened to the notes in her head.  After getting a miracle piano with prayer and a lot of hard farm work, Paulette finally got her piano lessons.  At the age of 15, she decided it was time to take up an additional instrument and play bass guitar.  "I was tapping to everything and could never sit still when there was music; it just seemed a natural transition."  All through her teen years you would find her and her siblings either practicing their instruments, riding their horses, hooking up their sled dogs, or out working hard on their 5 acres trying to earn money to buy more instruments.

It wasn't many years later when Paulette and her family planned to do a music tour across Canada, which they did accomplish a number of years later.  They toured in a big silver bus playing at churches and music festivals across Canada, with new their new recording in which they spent hours in the studio and literally  hours and hours  and hours practicing.  It wasn't unusual for them to spend 3-5 hrs practicing or jamming many nights.  During these years they had many bands and fans pushing her and her family to go to Nashville. They were going to do that "later" but "later" never came with the dispersing of the family with careers, weddings and such.

During all those years of making music, Paulette's music was put aside for awhile and her dispersing took her on a journey to Marvel College in Edmonton, AB to take up a long awaited career as a professional hairstylist.  She finished this career of 13 yrs in Langley, BC.  During these years she decided to take more education and become TESL certified.  This enabled her to tutor International students, in which she found herself teaching short term conversational English classes to many different cultures, as well as interviewing homes for International student host family placements.  Two of the places she worked were Trinity Western University and with NLC in FSJ, BC.  In this same line of work, she also did some work with a language firm in Vancouver where she was activity director with Langley Secondary School in Langley, BC. 

Looking throughout her lifetime, she notes that she taught and pioneered many interesting programs, including getting licensed with Kindermusik International.  Her first memories of teaching go back to the age of 11.  She looks back now and wonders how she did what she did starting at such a young age.  One thing about Paulette people notice is that she definitely marches to her own beat.  I guess that is why she's a natural bassist and has been for 25 years.  What can I say!!  She gets right in the swing of things.  I guess that is what drives her to do what she does now, manage Simply Music, work with family members and other awesome staff, teach Kindermusik, and work with lots of great students on a daily basis.  What else could a person ask for!!

Well, how do we start? It's been a long time coming but our website is now here! After many months of wrapping our non-technical minds around this process it's finally happened, we're live. There are many people we would like to thank for getting us into the Digital World. We'll start by saying thanks to Russell Eggleston from Image Build an excellent web development company based in Fort St John, BC. Russell is also part of the Northern Groove team, a local site where everything music and arts happens for the Peace River district. Getting the website launched is one thing, and mostly something that we depended on Image Build for, but launching out into the social media space is something entirely different. Social Media as we've learned over the past few weeks is much more than just trying to get people to LIKE your Facebook business page or Follow you on Twitter, but rather all about engaging in meaningful conversation and within those conversations trust is formed and relationships are built. We see social media as an integral part of our business model going into the future and are very grateful to Social Media Reach, Inc for getting all our profiles set up and teaching us how to engage properly as a business and also what all the social media do's and don't are, we're still learning and I think that will be an on-going  process for us:)

If you've never heard of us before, we're a large music studio in the Peace River region.  Simply Music started back in 1999 with a handful of students eager to learn how to make music. Since then our student base has grown to several hundred annually. We teach anything from Piano, Guitar, Flute, Violin, Drums, Vocal and Kindermusik. Our students range from babies in Kindermusik to Seniors pursuing their life long dream and many of them are now happily performing home concerts for the grandkids. Many of our student have been given scholarships and have gone on to professional careers in the music industry. We're so excited to finally connect with all of you and hope you will also connect with us by joining our conversations on Facebook & Twitter  and catching some great fresh music videos on our YouTube channel. Feel free to leave us some comments.