WOMEN OF NAMM I BY CASSANDRA SOTOS Outside the Frame
N ashville has a peculiar way of making the mu- sic industry feel like a small town. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in what’s going on in “the scene” here. Nashville is truly prolific when it comes to the arts. It feels like the center of the universe. Prior to diving into my current work in manufacturing and the music products industry, I spent the lion’s share of my adult career as a professional violinist. I was a part of the Nashville scene, gigging and socializing in the “center of the universe.” Then I got a call for the biggest gig you’ve never heard of. I joined an artist on the road named Arijit Singh, who is indis- putably one of the biggest artists in the world. You may not have heard of him, but he is frequently in the top two most-followed artists on Spotify — sometimes even sur- passing Miss Swift herself. During that tour, I had nothing less than an awakening to just how big the world really is. Nothing could have prepared me for our first show in Arijit’s hometown with 25,000 absolutely adoring, raging fans. We weren’t in Nashville anymore. BEYOND OUR BACKYARD Through that experience, I learned how to exist personally and profes- sionally in a group of more than 50 very different people. We had dozens of languages, religions and countries of origin represented — and even more instruments. We communi- cated, created, commiserated and celebrated. Everyone and every contribution was important. We all had an effect on one another. The world as I knew it had gotten
a whole lot bigger. My partner and I now own a small business, AmpRx, where I’m learning the same lessons all over again. We make everything by hand in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, just 20 minutes outside of Nashville’s city center. And just like gigging around Nashville, it’s easy to get swept up in our city and our industry and forget to look outside. We’re very intentionally an American manufacturer. And yet, geopo- litical events thousands of miles away have still reached our small Ten- nessee factory and directly affected our decisions, costs and customers.
It’s also easy in business to mistake the customers, competitors and opportunities immediately in front of us for the entire market. Just like Nashville gives us a front-row seat to the music industry, it’s still only one seat with one view. Some of our biggest opportunities have come from looking beyond the obvious to musicians, retailers and markets we may never have encountered if we only paid attention to our own backyard. That perspective changes the questions I ask as a business owner. Instead of only asking what our existing or typical customers need, I try to ask who we haven’t reached or even thought of yet. What use cases haven’t we considered? What are musicians doing differently somewhere else? Sometimes growth isn’t about finding a better answer to the question already in front of you. It’s realizing there’s a much bigger set of questions you haven’t asked yet.
There are people all over the world who don’t know us, and we don’t know them. And we may never cross paths, but how we live and the decisions we make will continue to have an impact on each other. The products we make here at home have made it into the hands of musicians all the way on the other side of the world. Whether it’s in our personal lives or in business, we’re all subject to an undeniable global interconnectedness. Distance is an illusion.
“Some of our biggest opportunities have come from looking beyond the obvious to musicians, retailers and markets we may never have encountered if we only paid attention to our own backyard.”
The most important thing I’ve learned through global touring and owning a business is that we have the tendency to mistake our immedi- ate environment for the whole picture. My goal is to continue to look outside of my current perspective. What I need in order to grow may be sitting right outside my current field of vision. Our worlds and our perspectives may feel small and local, and while we can, and should, truly appreciate what we have right here on our doorsteps, keeping our eyes and hearts open is the key to seeing the whole picture. MI
Cassandra Sotos is the CEO and co-owner of AmpRx and a member of Women of NAMM.
NOVEMBER 2026 I MUSIC INC. I 29
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