SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Fiddles and Stix Music Centre just got a whole lot bigger – and louder, if you were to measure loudness in terms of the combined sonic quality of all the guitars, amps and other sound blasting equipment on display at the recently relocated store.

Jim White, co-owner of Fiddles and Stix Music Centre on 52 Street, poses in the main area of his recently expanded store with his sons Zackary, left, and Tyler, right. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

So it's appropriate that on Thanksgiving Day, co-owner Jim White would be giving a tour of the new 1,800 square foot store on 52 Street to family, including his parents and maternal grandmother, as Headpin's rock classic "Turn It Loud" blared on the speaker system.

"Whatever happened to eight-tracks?" asked his mother, Helen.

Eight-tracks aside, White said his mission to bring a high-end music store to Yellowknife and prevent residents from having to travel to Edmonton for equipment has now been realized.

The old store was located in the Scotia Centre under less-than-desirous (read: cramped) conditions from 1994 to 2009.

"Basically I felt we outgrew our space in the Scotia Centre," said White, who has owned the store with his brother Steven since 1999. "The (mall) is desolate. It's just been getting emptier and emptier."

At the new store, "We've been able to expand on every section," he continued. "We've had a lot of products that we were never able to fully get out on display before. We've added some new lines – Fender and Gibson, which are two of the biggest guitar lines."

As opposed to the one-floor Scotia Centre location – a third of which was taken up by storage (which even spilled into White's private garage) and space for music lessons – the new store has a second floor exclusively devoted to music lessons, with two rooms for guitar lessons and another room entirely for drum and piano students.

The store currently has 90 students, said White.

"We'd also like to offer violin if we can attract a violin teacher, too."

White is planning a Nov. 20 grand opening for the store, which he hopes will cement the new location in the minds of his customers.

"We do have some people going to the old space," he said. "The signs over there need to be taken down," a responsibility of the mall's owner, he added.

White's seven-year-old son Zackary, who counts KISS as his favourite band, proved adept at handling the expensive guitars displayed throughout the store.

"It's really cool," he said of the new store. "It's wider. (Dad) says maybe I'm going to take guitar lessons some day."

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