Photography by: useless no more Source: Flickr
I happened across an interesting thread on SOTW yesterday. A member of the forum asked the question: What is a professional repairer?
I’ll let you read the thread for yourselves, and see the answers that the SOTW membership has chimed in with. Honestly, I’m quite surprised with the direction that the discussion has gone until now. (And by now, I’m referring only to reply #20.)
By this point no one has yet chimed in with the acronym NAPBIRT (National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians, Inc.). Nor has anyone from Europe mentioned the advanced training that master woodwind instrument makers receive.
What kinds of qualities do you value in your sax tech?
Since I don’t have a dog in this race, I’ll just leave the members to discuss amongst themselves what they believe a professional repairer is. I on the other hand, am more interested in another question: What kinds of qualities do you value in your sax tech?
For me this answer is a bit tricky, and my choice of techs a bit more limited, because my horn stable contains some saxes that are a bit more peculiar, and demand more specialized attention. For example, my Buescher bass is not going to be every tech’s forte.
When I lived in Fredericton, NB, I travelled the 4+ hours it took to get to Halifax, to have Layne Francis work on my horns. At the time Layne was the tech closest to me, who had experience working on a bass saxophone. He also did an amazing job working on all my vintage babies.
Fast forward to our move back to Metro Vancouver, and suddenly my choice of repair techs expanded twenty-fold. I had so many sax techs to choose from, I had to take notes just to keep track of them all. The first one I picked was great, but Jamie moved to Ontario shortly after doing an amazing overhaul on my Mark VI tenor.
I loved Sarge Stransky (R.I.P.) from WWS, but he would only do full restorations on horns, not the small day-to-day stuff that came along. (BTW, Chadd, who bought the shop from Sarge when he became ill, can do a fine job too. But again, he also will only do full restorations.)
A friend suggested that I try his sax tech, David Gsponer. At the time David was still working as the head tech at Northwest Music in Vancouver. Shortly afterwards David started his own company, Matterhorn Music.
Before moving to Canada in 1996, David did his tech training in Switzerland. He trained in not only repairing instruments, but became a certified woodwind maker.He can take a piece of wood, and make you an oboe, English horn, bassoon, or whatever else your heart desires. (Very handy if I ever have the urge to order a hand-made bass clarinet.) 😉
Skills/attitudes/qualities that I need from my sax tech
The original thread on SOTW got me thinking about the qualities that I value and require in my sax tech. In no particular order they include:
- Experience working on professionals’ saxophones;
- Experience working on vintage saxophones;
- Experience working on bass saxophones;
- Willingness to work with the client on how they want their horns set up before the work is done;
- Willingness to ensure the horn is set up exactly the way the player wants/needs it to be post-work;
- Ability to think outside the box and problem solve;
- Ability to manufacture parts, or ability to use available parts in such a way that they look like they’ve always been a part of the horn;
- Uses only top-of-the-line products;
- High quality workmanship and craftsmanship is paramount, as well as a;
- Reasonable shop rate.
Is there anything that you require of your tech that I haven’t included on this list? If there is, please leave a comment and let’s expand this list.
I liken finding a good horn tech, to finding a good doctor. My horns are my babies, and keeping them in top playing condition is my tech’s job. Having them looked after regularly not only saves money in the long run, it also preserves my vintage beauties for others to enjoy long after I’m gone.
I suspect if more people thought that way, there’d be fewer horns that looked like this, and more like this. Something to think about, as we ponder what saxophone history might look like in the future…
