KNOWING your Beatles from Beethoven is important at Music Exchange.

For instance, there are 300 editions of Beethoven's Fur Elise and the company can supply every one of them in printed sheet music.

The business that began selling musical instruments from a shop in the city centre in the 1950's now prints music for traders worldwide.

Rapid expansion over the years has lead to the opening of two stores one at St Peter's Square, in Manchester, the other in Stockport - as well as a purpose-built warehouse at its main headquarters in Wythenshawe.

Education

Ninety per cent of business is now wholesale distribution to outlets who retail a significant amount of teaching material to schools and education centres.

And as well as being the biggest supplier of music in the UK, Music Exchange also holds accounts further afield, including the Far East, Africa and Australia.

Director and company general manager, Tony Osbourne said: ''We are specialists in our field and we can supply anything - if a customer wants it we can get it for them as long as it is in print.

''We have just over 1,000 accounts in the UK, which I think is a good percentage of the trade to music shops in the UK.

''We have always had a good working relationship with the publishers so they will recommend that people come to us.''

When the Taylor family first bought the small music shop in Portland Street they never imagined they would hit such a high note in sheet music sales. But almost 50 years later, after outgrowing all their other premises, they have had to invest in a warehouse built to specification.

''When we moved here we thought it might be worthwhile expanding into direct retail sales,'' said Tony.

''In the first 12 months we turned over about £100,000 and it has just grown since that day. We now do a lot of business through the internet.''

The mail-order service is now the fastest growing side of the business. With two websites - one for mail order, the other for traders - goods can be dispatched within 24 hours.