Musical pair in life and commerce

Their online business offers acoustic music fans items that many music stores don't have.

By LOGAN NEILL, Times Staff Writer
Published August 27, 2007

Trisha and Ken Brooks sell homemade rhythm spoons, dulcimers, Cajun washboards, and a variety of other bluegrass-style instruments. The two have been making a living from music and crafts for 27 years.
	[Danny Ghitis | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Danny Ghitis | Times] The shape of a spoon is traced out over a 2x2 block of mahogany. Two spoons are carved out, processed and glued together to make an old-time instrument, rhythm spoons.

SPRING HILL - One of the more popular instruments that Ken and Trisha Brooks sell is not really an instrument at all. It just so happens that the rough metal surface of a old-fashioned washboard makes a dandy percussion sound when stroked by thimble-covered fingers.

The Brookses sell about a dozen musical washboards a month through their online business, Strumhollow.com. For $35, customers can get an instrument complete with a bell and a tin can for making novelty sounds, plus a strap.

Washboards are just a small part of a growing online store that peddles everything from handmade dulcimers, mandolins and banjos to musical knick-knacks such as jewelry, mousepads and key chains.

"Our inventory is pretty eclectic," Ken Brooks said as he sat in his living room and strummed an open-back banjo he recently built for himself. "It's a fun business because it caters to people whose tastes are a bit off of the beaten path."

Married for 27 years, the Spring Hill couple consider themselves devout "folkies." In addition to singing and playing a variety of acoustic instruments, they also teach music lessons in their home. But it was their desire to share their love of folk music with others that inspired them to start Strum Hollow Acoustic Music seven years ago.

"We looked around and saw a void that other music stores weren't filling," Trisha Brooks said. "Where are you going to find a real wood kazoo, or banjo earrings? So we took what we already knew and just started building on it."

Another reason for starting the home business was that it would allow Trisha's mother, who was suffering from advanced Alzheimer's disease, to be brought to the Brookses' home to be cared for.

The couple, who had spent several years selling handmade wares at art festivals around the Northeast, set up shop in their garage in 2000. With Trisha filling online orders and making items such as logo T-shirts and coffee mugs, Ken went to work in his woodshop turning out handcrafted banjos, mandolins and guitars.

The collaborative effort has been a perfect fit, says Ken, 55. It allows the couple to earn a decent living from their passion, something they feared they might never be able to do again after they both contracted Lyme disease 22 years ago.

The couple had just packed up from an art show in July 1985 when Trisha began noticing a rash on her skin. Gradually, it got worse. When the tick-borne disease began to manifest itself as a series of headaches, sore joints and low-grade fevers, she and Ken went to see a doctor.

"Lyme disease really wasn't well known back then, and it took them a long time to figure out what was going on," Trisha said. "We just kept getting sicker and sicker."

Although the couple eventually recovered with treatments of antibiotics, both say they have never felt completely well. Trisha has since contracted a pulmonary disorder, which makes standing for long periods difficult.

Fortunately, Trisha said, the mail-order music business doesn't require much physical effort other than a daily trip to the post office to send off packages.

The couple says that the business has managed to amass a loyal following in a relatively short amount of time. Although they do get a fair amount of referrals through Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo, much of their customer base has sprung from folk music Internet user groups.

"People who play acoustic music tend to be very word-of-mouth oriented," Trisha said.

Though the majority of their business comes from the United States, there have been more and more overseas customers recently.

"If you live in England and want to play old-time or Cajun music you're going to have a hard time finding things like musical spoons and washboards over there," Ken said. "That's the beauty of doing business on the Internet. What you want is never really too far away."

Logan Neill can be reached at 848-1435 orlneill@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 26, 2007, 21:22:37]