Yesterday I took a couple of my vintage, German tenors to my tech, David Gsponer, who owns Matterhorn Music. Dave is about the kindest, gentlest, and most patient tech that I have ever met.
David did his training in Switzerland as not only a repair tech, but also as a wind instrument maker. That’s right, he his trained in how to make wind instruments from scratch.
If you live in the Vancouver region, and you’re looking for a tech, I highly recommend David. I’m very fussy about who works on my horns. Finding a good, honest tech, is much like finding a good, honest mechanic. With David, honesty and great work go hand in hand—and I don’t make this comment lightly.
Hammerschmidt-made Klingsor Model Tenor Photo By H. Kahlke
Yesterday David’s patience was put to the test, as he sat down to adjust the key heights on my Klingsor nickel plated tenor. The problem with the sax has been that since I received it from André late last summer, certain notes have always been rather sketchy in the intonation department. The horn had been repadded before André bought it, but never fully set up. This had led to some notes being sharp, and others being rather flat.
I had taken the Klingsor to David once before, and he had tweaked it, but I was not familiar enough with the sax yet to know how much was me, and how much was the horn. Now that I know the sax well, I could take it back to get its final adjustment.
Yesterday David and I spent a couple of hours together as he painstakingly removed the lower stack keys to lower them. That didn’t work, they needed to be high, so he added shims and I tried it again. We kept on this for a while with David adding to the shims as necessary, until all the key heights were perfect.
Once we had the lower stack keys done, he opened up the left palm keys, and then went to work on the upper stack keys. By now lunch time had come and gone, and I was starting to fade.
Unfortunately every time he worked in one area, the lower stack would no longer be exactly in tune. He had opened the upper stack keys as far as he dared, but it still wasn’t quite right. Intonation was still sketchy. By now what was abundantly clear, was this Klingsor was a very finicky saxophone.
Finally I had a thought. I suggested that I email the tech in Germany who had restored Dave Denton’s silver plated Klingsor with the acrylic key guards, and see if Uwe could shed any light onto the Klingsor’s mysterious key height issue. David agreed that this was the best course of action, because the Klingsor could not be set up like other saxophones.
Last night when I came home from David’s shop after leaving both my Klingsor, and my Hohner President there, I sent a quick email off to Uwe. This morning I was surprised to see that he had already responded, and copied me on his email to David as well.
I am crossing my fingers that with Uwe’s help, David will now be able to crack the code that is the mystery of the Klingsors’ key heights. These horns really are an enigma.
