The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

It isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a shop to restrict itself to just one brand. Although there’s no product option here, the Yamaha showroom in Heliopolis makes up for this by offering Yamaha models of various instruments in all shapes and sizes.

There are plenty of guitars in this store, both acoustic and electric, but the price begins high at around 950LE. As you progress along the wall-rack, they become steadily more attractive, expensive, and pleasant to play and listen to; the most expensive are beautiful models with all the frills, which will set you back around 4900LE. A bass or two hides among them, but of these there’s limited choice. Prices between 2300-3200LE

Like many music shops in Cairo, keyboards and pianos seem to take precedent. Again the price starts high, at around 1900LE, but like the guitars, even the cheapest is a solid model. These may not have weighted keys or sound incredible, but they will be more than enough for your everyday needs; and if you’re looking for something more upmarket, you need only walk a little further into the store where top of the range keyboards (up to 9100LE) share space with magnificent standing pianos. Bring your cheque-book, however, as these cost between 15000-35000LE

In the back of the shop you’ll find a room packed to the ceiling with amplifiers to suit any need, from personal portables to gigging monsters. Quality-wise you can choose anything from a fairly cheap, functional model to an extravagant one. This showroom apparently caters for producers and technicians as well as independent musicians, since along with PAs one or two mixing decks of intimidating size and complexity lurk in the far corners of scary prices such as 160000LE.

A lonely Roland DTX-500 electric drum-kit (11000LE) sits in a corner next to a cabinet well-stocked with sticks of various sizes, guitar and bass strings (acoustic, electric or nylon), sax reeds (although no saxophones are sold in-store), amp leads, and so on; all the standard instrument accessories, all reasonably priced. There are few technical accessories, however, so think of this as an instrument rather than a musical supply store.

If you don’t mind being restricted, Yamaha is a safe brand with a reputation for quality and durability. Despite the limited options, you can find what you need in this show room, and trust that it won’t fall apart after a few jams.