About Palen Center

Founded by brothers and music educators: Dan and Bill Palen. The company was founded upon music education and serves the education community today as one of its primary focuses. PMC accomplishes this by serving school music programs, teaching music lessons, selling high-quality instruments at family-friendly prices and by the sponsorship of many festivals and competitions in the area. Even though the company has grown a great deal over the years, Palen Music Center still holds true to their core principals of treating customers like family, maintaining a family-friendly, expert staff; and by giving them a great price -- ALWAYS. The Palen family is still actively involved each day, along with their incredible team members, in the serving of their customers.

It all started when Dan and Bill Palen, brothers and successful music educators, decided to pool their life savings and buy Will James Music Service that had been a music business in downtown Springfield, Missouri since the early 1900s. Dan and Bill wanted to give back and help other music educators succeed. They had a passion for helping kids. Dan and Bill believed that music was an important part of the education of all kids and went about furthering this belief everyday.

The work was hard and the hours long. The profit was slim. After their first full year in business they made a grand total of $20,000 in sales, not even enough to cover expenses. In fact, it was so tight that Dan Palen continued his day job as the Head Director for Southwest Missouri State University during the day and worked nights at Palen Music Center. Dan and Bill agreed to share Dan's teaching salary if it came to that in order to support their families while they pursued this crazy dream.

After several years of hard work and desperation, momentum was found and Palen Music Center began to grow. The store expanded and was moved multiple times in downtown Springfield until they settled on buying the old Arthur Murray Dance Studio on Walnut Street- right next to the Lander's Theatre. This relocation would provide them enough room for years to come for a full repair facility, a showroom, offices, and music-lesson studios.

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