David Lusterman founded the San Rafael, California-based String Letter Publishing Inc. in 1985 and launched Strings the following year as a quarterly with a circulation of 1,000. In the two decades since the magazine has evolved into a 10-times monthly—bimonthly in the summer—with a circulation of about 15,000. He describes its primary audience as professional players, with a health mix of amateurs, students and members of the trade.

Teen Strings launched last year as an annual, but Lusterman notes, "It's already a quarterly and very much on a roll with a paid circulation of 10,000 and growing." Another spin-off, Strings Next, publishes thrice yearly as a string teacher-oriented compilation of reprint articles from Strings. String Letter's 30-person staff also publishes AcousticGuitar, Play Guitar! and Guitar Teacher magazines, plus a line of related books.

Q. Have your publications Strings and Teen Strings tried to combat the recent music education cutbacks in public schools?
A. One of the pleasures of being a profitable publishing company is one's ability to give as well as take. Sadly, America lost a generation of music teachers during the last really vicious cutbacks in arts funding during the '70s and '80s. We currently have thousands of music teachers retiring who are being succeeded not by colleagues in their 40s but by either teachers fresh out of college or no one at all. My favorite extracurricular activity is serving on the board of the National String Project Consortium, a wonderful movement that brings young public school students, who get little or no music instruction in their schools, onto college and university campuses. They're taught by music performance and music education undergraduates who would otherwise have no opportunities to do hands-on student teaching.

Q. In May Christie's auctioned off a Stradivarius violin for $3.5 million—the most yet for any musical instrument at auction and topping another Stradivarius that went for $2.2 mill last year. Meanwhile, country singer Lefty Frizzell's Gibson guitar is up for sale, with a $350,000 asking price. A couple of years ago, a Gibson owned by George Harrison went for $500,000-plus and one of Eric Clapton's Gibsons sold for $800,000-plus and a Fender Stratocaster for nearly $1 million. Why do you think musical instruments like these are going for such hefty prices?
A. The collector market for Stradivari violins—"Stradivarius," by the way, is a weird Latinate variant that's never used in the string world, kind of like calling my nearest city "Frisco"—was established within just a few decades of his death, though not with quite the inflationary zeal of the boomers who are now buying celebrity guitars. And it's proceeded, with a few bumps in the road, ever since. But don't trade your Westchester house for a Clapton cast-off in pursuit of a hot investment. As James McKean, a fine violin maker, gifted novelist and one of Strings’ founding contributors, pointed out in "Something Old..." in the June/July 2005 issue: "If someone tells you violins are a fabulous investment, he or she is being disingenuous. While the art market has shown real growth over the past century, it has been consistently outpaced over the long term by the stock market—and this is without factoring in the extra costs you face with violins, such as insurance, conservation and interest on any loan you may have taken out." Besides, in many instances, the monumental prices you mention have been paid in part or entirely as philanthropic donations by guitar lovers who also love a tax deduction.

Q. Symphonic-style music seems to have found yet another new outlet—video games—in part because this $25 billion industry can now afford lots of musicians as a way to compete with movies and other entertainment forms. Is that a music field that you might cover as a wave of the future?
A. Ringtones, video games, new media of all sorts, require composers and musicians. Staff editor Tiffany Martini's report, "Play the Game," in the March 2006 issue of Strings pinpoints the start of a crossover trend as when the venerable London Symphony Orchestra recorded the score for the game “Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness” in 2003.

Q. Do you play an instrument yourself?
A. My problem is I play too many instruments, none of them especially well. My musical passion is the cello, which I took up in my late 20s. I play regularly and often—chamber music on the cello, bass in a Beatles cover band, and for our office parties and jam sessions, I haul out my 1930s Dobro, on which it's much safer and more fun sliding than an icy New York sidewalk.