CLASS A Master in Lessons BY KATIE KAILUS I PHOTOS BY SCOTT ROBERTSON Shiloh Music Center, NAMM’s inaugural Retail Awards winner for ‘Best Music Lesson Program,’ shares how a family business turned its teachers and students into family, too — and why that matters more than the program’s headcount. W alk through the doors and to the back of Shiloh Music Center, and you’ll find nine music lesson studios buzzing with the sounds of piano and guitar — the everyday soundtrack of the Mt. Juliet, Tennessee-based dealership. Founder and owner George Hedges calls it his own version of Tin Pan Alley. It’s a sound that’s been building for some 52 years, and this January, it earned Shiloh the inaugural “Best Music Lesson Program” award at the 2026 NAMM Retail Awards. For a family that’s been teaching the Nashville metro area to play music for five decades, the honor was long awaited. George and his father opened the first iteration of the store in 1974 — a 1,000-square-foot space with two teaching studios and a guitar-repair bench crammed in the back. Today, Shiloh Music Center is a 3,600-square-foot operation with 13 teachers, roughly 300 weekly students and a new generation — sons Paul and James — helping to run the business. Karen Hedges, who taught her first piano lesson the same year she married George, has logged 50 years teaching piano and, in 2021, was even inducted into the Steinway Music Teacher Hall of Fame. But talk to the Hedges family, and it’s clear their “Best Music Lesson Pro- gram” designation didn’t come down to square footage or student headcounts.
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