Band instrument rentals
Woodwind and brass
Three years and it is yours
Free school delivery
Flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, French horn and baritone horn for students in school band across Connecticut and New York. Every instrument comes through our Norwalk shop and is checked by a working musician before it goes out.
Three years and it is yours
Rent an A Line instrument for three years and it belongs to your family permanently.
Checked by a musician
Every instrument is inspected by a professional player or teacher before it goes out.
Free school delivery
Instruments arrive at the school in the fall, across Connecticut and New York.
Repairs in house
Our own technicians handle repairs, and adjustments are free for as long as you rent.
Our band lines
We offer four lines. Two are our own house instrument, new or rebuilt, and two carry a recognized brand name. What separates them is whether the instrument is new, whose name is on it, and what it costs to get started. Any of them will serve a student for a full school year.
A Line
A Line is our own house instrument. Each model is built to specifications we set, written to match or exceed what the major brands put into their student instruments: bore dimensions, key work, pad seating, valve tolerances and intonation. Our own musicians play-test a model before we adopt it, and every instrument is checked here before it enters the fleet.
The instruments are made by established manufacturers building to that specification. What you are not paying for is a name on the bell, and that accounts for most of the difference in price.
Rent an A Line instrument for three years and it belongs to your family permanently. No other rental company in the region offers that, and we can because we expect these instruments to still be playing well in ten years.
A Line instruments carry no brand marking, which is deliberate. Once the instrument belongs to your family, it should not be stamped with the name of the company you rented it from.
Available on flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone horn and French horn.
B Line
Before house instruments existed, this is what every shop rented, and it is still what many families picture: a recognized manufacturer with a familiar name on the bell. Some directors ask for one specifically.
These have been played before, and they are well-known brands like Yamaha, Jupiter, Selmer, Buffet and Gemeinhardt. We buy them individually rather than by the crate, and each one is restored on our bench and inspected before it goes out again.
If your director has asked for a particular manufacturer, tell us and we will say what we have and what we can find.
C Line
The same house instrument as our A Line, back from a previous rental and rebuilt by our technicians. A technician sits with each one and makes the playability adjustments a factory production line does not stop to make.
It is the least expensive way to get a student started. If you are collecting at our shop and would rather have a different one, say so and we will swap it while you are there.
Premium Yamaha Line
Among brand-name instruments, Yamaha is the standard, and this is a limited collection of the models school programs most often specify: the YFL-221 flute, YCL-255 clarinet, YTR-2330 trumpet, YSL-354 trombone and the YAS series alto saxophone.
Offered on those five instruments. Supply is limited and does not restock quickly, so if a Yamaha is what you want, ask early.
Choosing a line
Side by side, this is what separates them.
Not sure which to choose?
Choose A Line if you want a new instrument and intend to own it after three years.
Choose B Line if you or your director want a recognized manufacturer.
Choose C Line if your priority is the lowest cost to get a student started.
Choose the Premium Yamaha Line if a Yamaha is specifically what you want.
These are suggestions rather than requirements. Call us and we will tell you what is currently in stock in each line.
Every line gets the same free adjustments, the same in-house repairs and the same insurance options.
The instruments
Every instrument below comes in A, B and C Line. Five of them also offer the Premium Yamaha Line. Pick your instrument to see sizing, what is included and the questions families ask most about it.
Don’t see your instrument?
We also rent oboe, bass clarinet, tuba, baritone saxophone, euphonium, F-attachment trombones, and single and double French horns. The one instrument we do not rent is the bassoon.
These are not order-form instruments. They vary in ways that matter: a bass clarinet with or without the low extension, a three or four valve tuba, a baritone saxophone with or without the low A. Quantities are limited, and what we have on hand changes through the year.
Call and tell us what your band director asked for. Everyone here is a working musician, so we will understand what your student actually needs, and we can tell you the brand, the model and the price of what is available.
What’s included
Every band rental comes with the instrument, a case, and the accessories that instrument needs to be played on day one. A Line instruments arrive with everything new, including the mouthpiece.
Also free:
- Delivery to schools across Connecticut and New York in the fall
- Adjustments for as long as you rent
- Repairs handled in house by our own technicians
- Permanent ownership of an A Line instrument after three years of rental
Band rental questions
Answered by the technicians who repair these every day. Browse all Ask a Luthier answers.
Choosing an instrument
Which instrument is easiest to learn — and which is hardest?
The quick version: clarinet and alto saxophone are the easiest starts, because the reed does most of the work. Violin and the other fretless strings are the hardest to sound good on. Brass depends on whether your child takes to the buzz, and physical fit, hands, arms, and lungs, matters as much as any ranking. The best first instrument is the one your child can manage and actually wants to pick up. Now the longer answer.
Should we rent or buy our child’s first instrument?
Rent, in almost every case: beginners can't yet handle an instrument safely, children outgrow sizes and switch instruments, and renting turns those surprises into a phone call instead of a buying mistake. And we would say that even if we didn't rent instruments.
My child has braces. Can they still play a brass or wind instrument?
Usually yes, but the honest answer is that it depends on the child, because every mouth is different and so are the braces. Most students play straight through, with orthodontic wax on the brackets and a few weeks of patience, and the orthodontist is worth asking alongside the band teacher. Traditional steel brackets, Invisalign, and lingual braces (mounted behind the teeth) each interact with a mouthpiece completely differently. Our founder had lingual braces and played trumpet without a problem. Another student with the same instrument and front brackets might have a rough month.
Are my child’s arms long enough for trombone?
Almost certainly, yes. Beginning trombonists live in the first three positions, which even short arms reach, and band directors write for exactly that while children grow into the rest. The bigger question is overall size: whether your child can comfortably hold and carry the horn at all.
My child is switching from alto to tenor saxophone. What changes?
Less changes than it looks: the fingerings are identical, so everything your child knows transfers, and what is new is physical, more air, different-sized reeds, and a neck strap that suddenly matters. It is one of the most common moves in school band, usually when a student joins jazz band or grows into wanting a bigger sound.
Do you rent instruments that aren’t listed on the site?
Yes. Beyond the twelve instruments on the site, we rent oboe, bass clarinet, tuba in three and four valve versions, baritone saxophone, euphonium, F-attachment trombones, and single and double French horns. The one instrument we do not rent is the bassoon.
Renting and looking after it
What happens to an instrument between renters?
Every returning instrument goes through the same two-station process, and no instrument skips it: a full cleaning and sanitizing first, brass bathed in the dip tanks and every mouthpiece sanitized, then a separate checker who actually plays it, every key, valve, and slide, before it can go out again.
What’s the two-minute routine that prevents most repairs?
Woodwinds: swab it out, take the reed off, dry the joints, close the case.
What’s the most common avoidable damage you see?
Five habits would prevent most of it: use a sturdy case and treat carrying the cello as part of playing it, run a humidifier in winter, oil brass valves and grease the slides, grease clarinet corks before assembly, and swab the flute every time. Here is what we see when those don't happen.
Will I be charged for normal wear and tear?
No, not for normal wear: strings wearing out, rosin used up, bow hair breaking strand by strand, a case zipper giving out. That is expected, and it is never charged to you. Damage is different: dents, cracks from drops, a broken bow, carved initials. We always tell you which side of the line we think something sits on before any chargeable work happens, and the insurance exists for the genuine accidents and the gray areas.
What does the damage insurance actually cover?
Covered: accidental drops, minor dents, stuck valves and keys, ripped corks, mouthpiece mishaps, the ordinary catastrophes of a student's year. Plus a loaner instrument while yours is on the bench, when one is available, at no extra cost. One request from the repair side: bring every piece. Screws, corks, fragments, the works. We repair better with all the parts.
What happens if my child quits after a few months?
Then you return the instrument. That is the whole point of renting instead of buying, it happens in every school year, and nobody here will make it awkward.
Ready to rent?
Pick your instrument above to start, or call and we’ll walk you through it. Nothing is charged until we confirm.