By JASMIN PERSCH Special to the Daily Press
Paul Hernandez may run a business, but he doesn’t consider himself a businessman. Musicians rarely do.
Hernandez, 65, is the president of the Santa Monica Music Center, which sells and rents instruments to the majority of the music students in the city.
He didn’t start off as a small business owner, but rather a music teacher.
When Hernandez moved to Santa Monica from Hollywood in 1969, he taught 50 drum students on the second floor of someone else’s music store on 50th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard.
The music store eventually went out of business, and he was sucked into taking over in 1971 even though it wasn’t what he wanted. He pulled his brother, Victor Hernandez, into the business three years later to manage the accounting.
It wasn’t until 1980 that Hernandez founded the Santa Monica Music Center, which moved from Lincoln Boulevard to the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and 19th Street nearly seven years ago. The focus of the center has always been on youth. It offers special classes to toddlers and even babies as young as three months to introduce children to music as early as possible. The center also gives students special deals such as “rent to own,” which allows their money for renting an instrument to go into buying one.
Hernandez is a strong believer that music can help reduce violent tendencies in children because it teaches them coop-eration, he said.
As financial support for youth learning music, the center donates $4,000 in free music lessons to underprivileged children each year.
The center has also attracted children of stars including John Travolta, John Candy and British comedian and singer Tracey Ullman. Some of its celebrity customers have been Tim Meadows from “Saturday Night Live” and Don Cheadle, the main character in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”
Hernandez has been a jazz drummer for a majority of his life. He played in numerous jazz bands, including The Village Stompers in the 1960s; on the Vegas Strip in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; and in his own band, the Chico Hernandez Big Band, a play on his nickname “Chico,” he said.
Hernandez started drumming when he was 4 years old and still performs today.
He lives with his wife in an Ocean Park apartment building, where his brother and his wife and his daughter and her husband live as well.
Hernandez said he has only been able to live in Santa Monica because his building is rent-controlled.
The rent of his storefont has been rising, but overall, he said business has treated him well in Santa Monica.
Even the schools taking music education out of the curriculum doesn’t affect the health of his store.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Hernandez said. “If schools abolish music programs, we are inundated with people who want to take lessons. If they have strong music programs, students need instruments and private lessons.”
Hernandez said students come for private instructions because they don’t get one-on-one instruction at school, where they mainly practice with the entire orchestra.
Music may be his passion, but Hernandez also is a photographer and has dabbled in politics. He was a board member of the chamber of commerce in 1992 and is currently on City Hall’s performing arts commission, he said.
He recently sat down with the Daily Press to discuss his passions in life.
What sets your music store apart from others?
“Basically because we are a small business and operated in that manner, in other words, close, personal relationships with our students and our teachers and customers that come into the music store. And people sense that and appreciate it. We have quality instruments and quality music lessons with teachers that are all qualified. We have been doing this a long time in Santa Monica, for 32 years. People who know that, it also tells them something, that we must be doing something right to be around that long. Most of the people that come here, because we are in music, we are musicians. Myself, I have a good sense of humor. It’s kind of a fun atmosphere. People enjoy their lessons and just the camaraderie. The attitude is kind of a fun, non-uptight way of operating our business. Operating the business in that way has its pluses and minuses, but mostly pluses. The fact that our business is for musicians and run by musicians (is different from) someone who’s come into the business from another line of work and run a music school and music store like you’d run a shoe store or something.
“People who are musicians, who buy music, who are music lovers, we tend to feel sympathetic with them (and) understand exactly what their interests are. We know how to communicate our ideas to them and vice versa. Most music stores that have lessons, they are a music store that’s interested in marketing and selling at retail level instruments, and the music instruction part of it is almost an afterthought. We’re just the opposite. We always have been from the start. We were a music education facility first. And the only reason why we got into the retail region gradually was because of the demand from our students and also to meet the demands of the school system to rent quality instruments. We’re first of all an instructional institution, and that’s why our studios are in such good shape as they are in and the store is the second part of the business.”
How does your music center give back to the community?
“In actuality, we do a lot of things. No. 1: We help parent organizations raise money by auctions. We give gift certificates for lessons and/or instruments for them to auction off. We donate that. We deal with a couple of organizations that help underprivileged children obtain music lessons, and we work with them in that manner too.”
Why do the majority of students buy instruments from your store?
“People trust us and the teachers recommend us because they’ve known us for many, many, many years because we’ve been around a long time. So they know we have integrity, no. 1. No. 2: Most other music stores around sell guitars, drums and keyboards. We are, I don’t know if I can say only, but yeah, the only real, well-supplied, quality band and orchestra instrument store on the Westside. And, with our Culver City store, we do that over there too.”
Why is music education important? “Sports can be a real good thing in a child’s life if something is wrong with it, but generally speaking, it teaches competition, which I suppose is good to be well-versed in America, but opposed to music, which really teaches cooperation more. To be in an orchestra or even to be in a band, it’s all about cooperation. You cooperate with the other musicians to make music. Whereas with a football game, as an example, it’s really set up as a mini-war game. There’s the offense, and there’s the defense. You charge at one another and bang into one another. I think that we’re a little out of balance with that in our education system. Not in Santa Monica, but in the rest of Los Angeles County. They need more music and perhaps less emphasis on contact sports. And also, with my experience in teaching children in general and especially at-risk kids in other communities. If there’s more music and parental involvement in a child’s life at an early age, then they’ll be less problems later on. That’s one of the reasons why we focus on the ‘Mommy and Me’ classes at such a young age, ’cause the earlier you teach a child the good things in life, the better you have them absorb it at that time and helps to develop their core personality.”
What do you think about the schools in Santa Monica?
“The school system here is desirable. People try to come here from other cities. There is an excellent system here. There is great parental support for extracurricular activities, especially how it relates to music. They have a band-booster parent organization at Samohi that helps to fund the students when they travel to Europe for different contests. Of which, by the way, the Santa Monica High School orchestra usually wins top honors at these world events. The Samohi orchestra is one of the finest orchestras in the world, not just this country. They won in at least two European countries in the past years that I know of for sure. There’s a lot of support, even the City Council, when the schools got into trouble, they came up with a million dollars or something. I would say Santa Monica makes education a priority.”
What do you like most about Santa Monica?
“The fact that it’s conducive to the arts, creative thinking, creative people. They have a creative community here. I like the fact that it has a liberal bend to it. The City Council basically has a compassion for the homeless and a compassion for small business. Sometimes what they do can be confusing. But generally speaking, people like (Councilman) Ken Genser are really states people, not just a politician.”
What is your least favorite thing about the city?
“Homelessness is a problem here in Santa Monica because Santa Monica has a big heart and because it doesn’t come down on them really hard because it’s not (the homeless people’s) fault. But the downside is when we get inebriated people sleeping in our doorway, but we take care of it, we help them ourselves if we can. If they become belligerent or if there’s a health issue with them coming into the store, occasionally, we have to call the police. I have to admit, this happened just a little while ago. The police are very compassionate when they have to come by and deal with these people.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 3, 2005. Read the original PDF.