Ars Nova

I bought a book of piano music for my son here a year ago. I was looking for some Chopin music that my son’s piano teacher had requested and in an effort to buy local rather than purchase on line, I had gone into Ars Nova. I will point out that when I was a student myself I had gone in and bought things there and had a fine experience — but that was about 20 years ago — I asked the person working there (owner?) about getting a book with these pieces in it and he brought me a Japanese version. He did not tell me what it cost and it did not have a price tag on it. I asked about the fact that the non music part was in Japanese and he made fun of me and told me that that didn’t matter. He then rung up the purchase and it was $ 36 dollars. I was not sure if that was too expensive or not, but it seemed high to me. After I took the book home, I looked up the book on line and discovered that the books should run about $ 10. I was annoyed but decided to simply not shop there again after this experience and let it go. However, when I got to my son’s lesson, his teacher was not impressed by the book. She told me which eddition to get and she told me to take this one back, it was not the appropriate collection. I took it back and the man was rude to me about returning it. He handed me the exact cost of the book, but not the tax back. I asked about the tax and he told me that the government would not refund to him the tax on the book and so he wasn’t going to refund it to me. No one has ever told me that — but at this point I decided that arguing over a buck or two with someone who has been nothing but rude and unprofessional with me wasn’t worth it. I left and vowed never to return to that place. I was just looking up some Erik Satie music for my son on line and feeling a bit guilty about not trying to buy local and then I revisited this memory and decided to warn others about Ars Nova again.