Instrument repair and manufacture in mind as Craigie prepares to take on High Level Music
AS THE owner of Lerwick shop High Level Music heads towards retirement, the man taking on the reins says he is raring to go.
Fiona Adamson will pass on the baton at the start of April to Konrad Craigie, a 26-year-old musician who has recently studied stringed instrument repair and manufacture in Glasgow.
The business operates from leased premises at the Market Cross, and is the only shop in Shetland offering music instruments and accessories.
It currently operates over three floors, alongside a complementary business with teaching, rehearsal and workshop space.
Craigie, who grew up in Burra but now lives in Lerwick, said he moved back to Shetland last summer after spending four years studying in Glasgow.
“I saw the shop going up for sale and it just seemed like a bit of an opportunity,” he said.
He intends to use the fruits of his studying to carry out instrument repairs upstairs in High Level, while the eventual goal is to also build guitars and mandolins too.
But for now “everything that is here will be continuing”, such as the shop and the tuition.
He plans to keep a lot of the same stock, but might introduce some new items – referring to brands such as guitar company Ibanez.
“It’s a new business for me so it’ll just be a case of building up the stock as I go,” Craigie added.
He played fiddle as a bairn, and then picked up the guitar in secondary school.
But watching YouTube videos of people making guitars piqued his interest in the manufacturing side of things, and led him down the path towards a four-year course in Glasgow.
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With uncertainty surrounding High Level when it went up for sale, he said the shop would have been a miss if it had ended up closing.
“There’s that much of a music community up here,” Craigie said.
“Even if you are playing a gig on a Friday night, if you lose a cable you can nip and get one.”
Craigie – who has previously been employed as a mechanic – said he has experience of working in retail while he was in Glasgow, although the business side of things will be new to him.
With plenty of people around him to help, he said it will be a “peerie bit of a ‘figure it out as it goes’ situation, but it should all go well”.
“I’m really excited for it,” he added. “This is the kind of stuff I’ve been wanting to do my whole life.”
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