Hal Leonard

In the late 1930s in Winona, Minnesota, the late Harold "Hal" Edstrom, his brother Everett "Leonard" Edstrom and their friend Roger Busdicker had formed a very popular dance band. Concerned that their conservative father wouldn't approve of using the family name for a band, Harold and Ev took parts of their names and called the band Hal Leonard. As leader of the Hal Leonard Band, Ev eventually became known as "Hal Leonard."
The company Hal Leonard was founded in 1947, after the Hal Leonard Band broke up. At the time, Ev started a music store using the Hal Leonard name while Roger and Harold were both directing award-winning high school bands in Winona. In those days, most school bands played serious literature, but Harold and Roger had the unique ability (because of their professional experience) to arrange "popular" music for school bands. Soon band directors across the US wanted their arrangements. They started to mimeograph copies and sell them. They realized that to successfully (and legally!) launch a new publishing company, they needed to license songs, so they ventured to New York's Tin Pan Alley in search of copyrights. What they got on their trip was an education in publishing and the rights to "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," one of the most popular songs of the day. Eventually, many music publishers in New York were licensing Hal Leonard to do school band arrangements of their songs. Thus began their publishing business and an entirely new industry.
In 1970, Keith Mardak and associates started a new division of Hal Leonard called Learning Unlimited, to create the first book/audio music instructional products. This division soon outgrew the company, and Mardak became general manager for the entire company. Shortly afterward, the Hal Leonard Guitar Method was launched, becoming one of the first methods to incorporate popular music. Today, this method is the leading guitar method in the world, having taught millions how to play guitar.
Today, Hal Leonard Corporation is the world's largest educational music publisher, with the #1 methods for learning guitar (the Hal Leonard Guitar Method), piano (the Faber Piano Method), and school music instruments (Essential Elements for Band and Strings), plus publications for learning virtually every instrument imaginable.
Hal Leonard is also the leading publisher of songbooks; Real Books and fake books; sheet music; band, orchestra and choral arrangements for schools; music reference publications; children's music products; educational magazines; and more. Many new titles are enhanced with supplemental audio and video files online for download and streaming.
In its catalog of more than 200,000 available titles, Hal Leonard represents many of the world's best known and most respected publishers, artists, songwriters, arrangers and musical instrument manufacturers. Its products are sold in more than 65 countries throughout the world through Hal Leonard offices and a large network of distributors.