Best store for musical instruments
Boston is famed for being the birthplace of many a music career, and we've got the stores to prove it. Cambridge Music Center, across from the Porter Square Shopping Center, sells guitars, amps, percussion instruments, music books, lesson books, sheet music, and all the necessary accessories. The selection includes new and used items, and the store buys and sells a lot on consignment. If you take the easily missed stairs next door, you'll find yourself in the extensive classical-sheet-music room. In fact, Cambridge Music Center provides all the sheet music for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It also offers private-lesson packages for instruction in 14 different instruments, including voice. Across the street from the Berklee School of Music (where else?) sits Daddy's Junky Music. It features new and used guitars, drums, keyboards, bass guitars, and professional recording equipment, and many of the products are available for rental as well. And in addition to the giant Elvis head and alien that inhabit the store, there are frequent free clinics with famous visiting musicians and artists.

Cambridge Music Center, 1906 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 491-5433; Daddy's Junky Music, 165 Mass Ave, Boston, (617) 247-0909, www.daddys.com.