In 2009 our Raleigh, NC location will move into a bigger and better space at Briar Creek (70 & TW Alexander) that will offer some very cool features and amenities for our students. We are pushing for a late March/early April opening, but we'll have more details, a sneak peak at our floor plan and teaching room layouts and grand opening info. as we move along in our build out. The transition will be seamless and our teachers are very excited about the new space!
Posted on 30 December 2008 | 5:22 am
Well, OK, maybe not the Angus Young, but Progressive student Billy Smart looked the part for his Halloween 08' costume.
Posted on 2 December 2008 | 12:23 pm
Progressive Music Center now offers Pacific and DW drums! We have the new FS birch, the very cool 805 (pictured above in white on white finish), and the X7 series in stock!
Pacific, made by DW, creates amazing drums that sound great with beautiful finishes to match. Progressive has Pacific drums in stock at or below 60 - 75% OFF retail, so stop in and check out our selection of Pacific drum sets and hardware.
Posted on 10 November 2008 | 9:34 am
Progressive teachers have been utilizing the Zoom H2 hand held recorder from Samson in our lessons to record and archive our student's progress. This is a VERY cool little gadget that every student should own and use for practice and performance. Here's a small clip of mega jazz drummer Peter Erskine using the H2 to record. Interested in getting your own H2? Progressive has them in stock for only $159.99!!!!
Posted on 14 October 2008 | 10:02 am
We hear a lot of music in our studios, some great, some so - so and a lot of not so great. We also get asked about new bands and new music almost every day, so we thought we would offer some of our picks. This week we like the Gabe Dixon Band...
Posted on 1 October 2008 | 6:37 am
In the spirit of the 2008 election, we have produced a few of our own "collectible" election posters. Here's the first in the series. 
Posted on 25 September 2008 | 5:44 am
Progressive Music Center drum/percussion instructor Dexter Horton will appear in a documentary along with his comrades in the AC/DC tribute band, Night Prowler, for a VH1 documentary in late 2009.
See more pictures of the photo shoot during the filming of the documentary here
Posted on 22 September 2008 | 3:18 pm
Posted on 18 September 2008 | 6:40 pm
We are pleased to announce Rock Academy - the updated version of our popular Student Band Jam program where we place students into bands for rehearsals and performances. Rock Academy will offer everyone the opportunity to play in a band, no matter if you take lessons with Progressive or with someone else. (Shame on you for not taking your lessons with Progressive, but that's another post:)
It's simple to get started. Here's the scoop:
- Introductory price is only $10.00 per rocker.
- Rehearsals are weekly for one hour
- Space is limited
- Minimum of 3 members per band are needed to schedule a rehearsal
- No Make-Ups are offered for any reason
Ready to Rock? Call us to get in your band.
919. 453. 1688 (Wake Forest) 919. 787. 1688 (Raleigh)
Posted on 19 August 2008 | 11:47 am
In a band? Want to win cash and prizes? Want to impress your friends? Progressive Music Center and Raleigh Parks & Rec. is giving your band a chance to put down the fake guitar hero controller and play real music for real people and win real prizes. October 4th, at Laurel Hills Community Center. Call 831. 6688 for details and info.
Posted on 28 July 2008 | 12:21 pm
Hampton The Rock Camp Intern shares his personal thoughts on just how great our Original School of Rock Camps are...
Posted on 21 July 2008 | 6:33 pm
We're well into our third week of our Original School of Rock Summer Camps and the bands are sounding great! Here's a clip of our students rockers rehearsing at camp. The sound is not the greatest (the sound is from a little mic on a little DV camera), but you get the point - these are 8 and 9 year olds working on an original tune....
Posted on 10 July 2008 | 8:15 am
So, what's it like at our Original School of Rock camps? Check this Rock Doc. filmed by camp counselor Bill West just a few weeks ago...
Posted on 7 July 2008 | 2:50 pm
Progressive Music Center student Brandon Fernandez performed the piece Bolero by Ravel with world renowned percussionist Evelyn Glennie during her recent June concert appearance with the North Carolina Symphony at Cary's Regency Park in June.
Posted on 24 June 2008 | 1:50 pm
Where can you find all the latest music gear, see and hang with legendary performers like Steve Earl, Marcus Miller and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers? NAMM, of course! That's Steve Earl in the picture to the right hanging out at the Martin Guitar booth performing on his new signature Martin.
Posted on 18 June 2008 | 4:34 pm
Progressive Music Center's 13th year of the 'Original School of Rock' Summer Camps kicked off on June 16 at full capacity! Progressive Operations Manager Kyle Long said of the first week of camps, "What a great way to start the summer. We have a lot of talent in these camps and this is going to be the best year we have ever had"!
Posted on 18 June 2008 | 4:33 pm
Just good music and lots of fun! That's right, it's time again for the BEST summer camp you will ever attend - Progressive Music Center's 13th year of the 'Original School of Rock' Summer Camps returns!!!This year we're adding new courses, like "Communication Breakdown - How to Work & Communicate with Your Band On Stage", plus we're "retiring" some songs that have simply been played to death and adding new material that needs to be played!
Call: Raleigh location 919-787-1688 or Wake Forest location 919-453-1688
In Person: Stop by our shop and we'll get you signed up.
Posted on 15 April 2008 | 11:05 am
Progressive is working on a new website that will offer updated features, such as online lessons and video clips of student performances, camps and other events at Progressive.
The current website has been great, but the time has come to add some essential features and move forward with a fresh new look. With the addition of Progressive locations in Fairfax, VA and other locations coming online the new site will offer a one-stop destination for all Progressive locations.
Look for the new site in late May.
Posted on 15 April 2008 | 10:36 am
Exit: Sadly, Progressive Music Center says goodbye to long time drum/percussion instructor Scott Bachman in May. Scott, his wife Teresa and their son Jack are leaving North Carolina headed back to Scott's home turf of Brunswick, GA.
Also moving on is drum instructor Ryan Ross, who will be moving to New Jersey in May with his new wife, Kelly. Good luck to both Scott and Ryan, both will be missed greatly!
In: New to the Progressive line-up are guitar instructors Anthony Clayborne, Matt Brechbiel and Chris Bodall. Piano instructors Nikki McNeil and Rick Zayas round out our new additions to our teaching staff. Please stop in and say hello to these talented individuals.
Posted on 9 April 2008 | 12:57 pm
We're back in NC from our trip to the NAMM Show last week. Although we posted a lot of pictures, we left out much of the business that went on, so here's wrap-up of the business end of things...
The economy may be shaky, but manufacturers including Peavey, Hal Leonard, Daisy Rock, Roland, and The Music People, among many others, reported having an extremely busy show."This industry is recession proof," declared Scott Davies of American DJs.
D’Addario announced the opening of its brand-new distribution facility in Farmingdale, NY. The new facility implements a variety of systems and capabilities, including increased square footage—from approximately 48,000-square feet within two buildings to over 52,000 square feet contained within one building.
Gibson Guitar and TC Group announced merger plans.
"This merger will revolutionize the music industry for many years to come," said Henry Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO of Gibson. "The synergy between the two companies will allow us an enormous advantage in the development of the new audio technologies and bring together two of the world’s most powerful brands."
"Technology and music are coming together," said Fauerskov. "Gibson is a great guitar, and we can bring our audio technology to their product. We are very happy with the merger."
TC Group includes TC Electronic, TC Helicon, Dynaudio Acoustics, and Lab.gruppen. TC offers a number of pro audio technology,amplifiers, speakers, digital processors, and guitar pedals.
Finally, Roland has reached an agreement to acquire a major share of Cakewalk, developer of music creation and recording products. New products will be branded "Cakewalk by Roland."
The two companies have been partners since 1995, and have worked together on many projects. In 2003, Roland augmented its strategic partnership with Cakewalk by becoming a minor shareholder in the corporation. As a part of that relationship, Roland gained exclusive worldwide sales distribution rights, with the exception of the United States, which was still handled by Cakewalk.
You can always see pictures of the show here. Thanks for checking out our blog and stop by any Progressive Music Center anytime!
Posted on 23 January 2008 | 8:55 am
If you've been following my other posts then you know it's been a great trip to sunny California. We got in on Tuesday and have had nothing but a great show. Here's the week in review:
1. Industry meetings kept me busy most of the week. I started off on Wednesday morning with a GAMA meeting and ended up presenting my drumset marketing programs for 2008/2009 at the PMC meeting ( I'm 2nd from right in picture above).
2. Thursday wa
s drum day - I made my rounds to my endorsing companies and spoke to many of the people that I deal with on a regular basis, but only have a chance to see during NAMM. I also had a chance to meet Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer at the Alfred booth - Chad's brother, Brad, is an Alfred Exec and is the 1st guy on left in the picture with me above.) I also ran into Slash (literally, I just about knocked him down at the bathrooms by the Gibson booth), meet Santana at the Paul Reed Smith booth, had a drink with
3. I inked a deal for Progressive with Zoom to use their new H2 handheld recorder in our our teaching rooms. These are very cool little units that record direct to an SD card using 4 onboard mic capsules for 360° recording. The Zoom is super easy to use with remarkable sound quality. You simply push a button, record the lessons to either a WAV or MP3 file and that's it. We'll use the H2 to email the files to our students so they always have a recording of what they are doing. Students can pop the lessons on to their iPods or simple archive them on their computers at home. Very cool, very Progressive!
4. Friday and Saturday were my guitar/amp and everything in between days. I have tons of pictures from the Fender and Gibson booths, plus shots from ESP, Jackson, Charvel, Dean, Orange, Mesa, Ampeg, Randall and tons of others to long to list. Probably one of the coolest things was seeing Eddie Van Halen's original guitar in the Fender booth. I've got to catch my flight now, so I'll have to post the rest of this later, but check back often!
Posted on 20 January 2008 | 11:32 am
It's been a long week and a long day. I have about three hundred pictures from Friday and today (Saturday) that I need to download and post at some point. I'll have to get to that later and post some news too...but before I retire for the evening one of the best NAMM show moments happened this afternoon in the technology wing of the show floor. Stevie Wonder walked in to a booth where I was checking out some recording software. His assistant was very pleasant and introduced me and a few others that were in the booth to Stevie (he does this since Stevie can not read names on badges). Stevie says without hesitation, "I dig your
shirt, the color looks great on you". Oh yeah, Mick Mars looked frail over at the Marshall booth...
Posted on 19 January 2008 | 9:48 pm
Today was BUSY! From the moment I walked in to the show to the minute I walked out I had something going on non-stop. About 10 minutes after I got to the show I headed to the Fender and Gibson booths. As I rounded the corner to Gibson I ran into Slash and his entourage. That's a shot to the left of Slash as he headed past me walking out to smoke on the patio of the convention center. Seems like the rest of the day I ran into Slash (and the large amount of people following him around). Not sure who was around more, Slash or Santana. I ran into Santana at Paul Reed Smith, then at Alfred (pictured below @ right), then over at LP Percussion and then at Mesa...Santana stopped long enough to shake a few hands, but he was adamant about no pictures or signing. I think Slash signed any and everything. 
I also had a nice conversation with Tony Levin & T.M. Stevens (me pictured below tih Tony and T.M.), Jason Bonham and I spoke to Jerry Cantrell for a second - to name a few. I'll post all the pics of these guys tomorrow at some point.
Oh Yeah, today was not all about seeing rock stars around the show floor...Roland has reached an agreement to acquire a major share of Cakewalk, a developer of music creation and recording products. New products will be branded "Cakewalk by Roland."The two companies have been partners since 1995, and have worked together on many projects. In 2003, Roland augmented its strategic partnership with Cakewalk by becoming a minor shareholder in the corporation. As a part of that relationship, Roland gained exclusive worldwide sales distribution rights, with the exception of the United States, which was still handled by Cakewalk.Right now I'm heading back out to see Joe Satriani play at an Ibanez Party in Huntington Beach! More tomorrow...
Posted on 18 January 2008 | 11:24 pm
The day started @ 8 am with the NAMM Breakfast of Champions where NAMM Pres. Joe Lamond had a panel discussion with industry leaders Henry Juszkiewicz of Gibson, Marty Albertson of GC, Bill Mendello of Fender and Kaman’s Ed Miller, plus Skip Maggiora of Skip’s Music in California.
On the Fender buyout of Kaman, Mendello said, "It’s very simple. Kaman was a company we could acquire and literally just let operate. It’s not a situation where the company is broken and we’re going to try to fix it." If you don't know, Kaman is a large distributor that owns the Takamine, Gibralter, Gretsch drum and Toca brands. Kaman has been a large, "one-stop" distributor for music retailers for years. I have direct word from Kaman that Fender sees the guitar market as over saturated with Strats and Teles, so they are very interested in the drum market and see that Kaman has some serious brands under one roof.
Guitar Center’s Marty Albertson discussed taking the company private, and what it will mean in the short term. "We’re going to significantly slow down the growth of new GC stores over the next few years".
The floor opened for exhibits at 10:00 am - and the exhibits are what everybody is really here for.
Drummers, it's your lucky day since:
A. I am a drummer by trade
B. That's the side of the industry that I work in
C. That's where the majority of my meetings took place today
D. That's where I got most of my pictures!
E. Guitarists - this is what you get for all the bad drummer jokes (your day is tomorrow....)
There was some SICK drum gear on the floor from Pearl (see pic @ left), DW, dDrum,Taye, Yamaha, Tama, Pork Pie, Dunette, and just about EVERY drum maker on the planet! Most of my day was spent with reps and talking with drum dealers, so nothing major to announce right now, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so you will need to see the pictures in our photo gallery to believe the drum sets Pearl and dDrum had on display.
Paiste had a great booth along with Bosphorus, Sabian and Zildjian. Taye introduced a new limited finish on their hardware while Pork Pie and Trick drums both had amazingly HUGE bass drums at their booths (see picture). A few year sago at a PASIC show in Ohio, I bought some Factory Metal percussion that we have in our shops, it's a strange mix of metal made into these cymbal like instruments...very cool and they have expanded the line with distribution from Kaman.
I did make it by the Mesa booth and a few other guitar companies, but I'll put that stuff up tomorrow when I have more time and can get all of the pictures downloaded from my camera. 
Until tomorrow...
Posted on 17 January 2008 | 6:34 pm
Updates from the NAMM show floor:
1. I posted yesterday that Guitar Center has invested in an online music company - the company is TuneCore, not TuneCorps as listed in the post...
2. It's been rumored around the show that Best Buy will introduce more music stores into their existing retail outlets across the US to the tune of 600 stores in 2008. While there is sure to be conversions in some stores that number seems a little inflated to us, so we'll have to wait and see if Best Buy moves heavily into the music retail business in 2008.
Posted on 17 January 2008 | 9:51 am
