Tuba repairman passing the torch?

[bort2.0]

Earlier in a separate post, tofu made a really good point about the specialization of brass repair people, especially tuba repair people. Essentially that tubas come in so many shapes and sizes, and have so few parts available, it takes a lot of knowledge, experience, and figuring out over a long period of time to gain proficiency and expertise in performing high quality repairs. I suppose speed is a part of it for some things as well, but we've also seen people who are expert craftsman and it takes them years to complete a project.

They're not a tremendous amount of tube of repair people, but there are several scattered around the country. A lot of people who do really excellent quality work, that I would trust with any instrument at any time.

Most of these people are curmudgeonly at times, which is understandable given the various types of customers and repairs that they deal with on a regular basis. However, they are all really great people, and besides being extremely talented, I have always found them to be humble at the least, and sometimes borderline self-disparaging. In the eyes of a perfectionist, anything less than perfection is noticeable, and sometimes they think it's just garbage. Did the eyes of the people who brought in a broken instrument, almost all of the repair work is always above and beyond what they would have expected.

An awful lot of these people are getting up there in age, and I've heard so many times different people talking about how hard it is on their back now, and how they really don't like working on really big instruments anymore, but they find a way to make things work out.

And a great deal of these people also prefer, or seem to prefer, to work alone.

My question, is what kind of pipeline exists to preserve this knowledge and grow it moving forward? That is, if a bunch of excellent craftsman do their work flawlessly, alone, what happens when they are not here to do the work anymore?

Sometimes I think it's concerning that music instrument repair may become a lost art. There are few jobs, I'm sure they don't make anybody rich, and a trade like this would benefit tremendously from an apprenticeship program. And I think that there's an awful lot of people who just don't want to do that kind of stuff anymore, unless it's to be an electrician or a plumber, which has the promise of much higher salaries farther down the road and you have to start somewhere.

Is all this tuba repair and magic tweaking something that will be lost to history? Or are there people actively trying to record this and pass it down to the next generation of repair people?

Part of me isn't worried about it though, Because of the small number of people that are actually needed to do this kind of work. I mean, for a country of 350 million people (or whatever), I can name maybe 10-15 tuba repair people? I don't know how many we actually need, or would benefit from having as a larger number. That is, with such a large population, it's almost like there's going to be more repair people just by a matter of probability. For example, if one in every 10 million people is destined to become a tuba repair person, that's still about 35 people, which doesn't sound all that bad in terms of sustaining and preserving the craft. Or would be better, but maybe it's not in danger of going to zero, just on the fact that's country is so doggone big.

Hope this all made sense, I was talking to my phone as I was walking my dog.

[bort2.0]

Short version -- since you grouchy old repairmen all prefer to work alone, is your lifetime of knowledge going to die with you, or do you have a plan on how to keep it going in the future?

Let me show you how to do this, while I still can?
Or
Figure out for yourself, like I did. You'll probably figure out a better way to do it anyway.

[And just in case it's not clear, this is all meant with a tremendous amount of respect... with some sarcasm and poor attempts of humor.]

[Sousaswag]

This is really a great question.

It also comes down to how much work that person has and is willing to accept.

I’ve talked to several people about doing the work on my Willson F tuba. Several of them didn’t seem too eager to do the work and referred me elsewhere. TL;DR, don’t buy a damaged instrument. Finding someone you trust to do that work is also important.

It’s tough. Tubas are heavy, and straightening things requires strength and specialized tools. As we age, the strength goes, too. I get why a lot of people just don’t want to work on tubas. That’s just how it is.

We’re already running into trouble with valve rebuilds. Mr. Oberloh is probably BOOKED to the sky with literally everybody’s rebuild jobs, from trumpet to tuba. What happens when he decides to be done?

I’m still pretty young, but have always had an interest in this kind of stuff. I have a few beater horns that I’d like to take down just to practice. That’s how one learns, yes? Now, the tools and equipment - that’s a different story.

[bloke]

No plan and no concern. No one encouraged me to get into this racket, and no one taught me.

I've never mentioned this before, but I started doing this stuff in one of the worst economic times in relatively recent history, which was around 1979 (though we are headed for one which is far worse, because it's going to be a far far worse crash, and almost no one knows how to do anything away from a phone or laptop). I actually had a job set up in academia, but - when I quickly realized what a ridiculous racket it was - I just walked away from it and was looking to find any sort of job anywhere. I even applied at a brownie factory. They wouldn't hire me after I admitted to too much education and they figured I'd quit.

This thread reminds me of when someone's house is burning down, and they're concerned about saving the wallpaper.

[BRS]

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[bloke]

Two alcoholics hired me. One did fairly good work and one did really mediocre work. They both had full-time jobs elsewhere, but decided to open up a fledgling repair shop. They came around on Saturdays for three hours and messed around with maybe one horn each, usually one that was easy to fix. What taught me was some old tools they had collected and the instruments that were in the shop to be repaired. If anything else taught me, it was the fact that my Dad had a shed out in the backyard. He told me I could use any tools that didn't plug into the wall and that any of the scrap wood stored overhead that was under 4 ft long could be taken down and I could do whatever I wanted to with it. I think also always having to repair my own bicycles probably taught me. By the time I was 11, I had multi-speed bikes. I also had to true my own wheels. Of course I fixed my own flats. There were a couple of bike shops within two or three miles. I really never understood why other kids or their parents used them. When I was in the 9th or 10th grade, a 3-speed hub on a 26 in bike crapped out badly. A friend somehow had a five-speed derailleur back wheel of the same size, and sold it to me along with a derailleur. To make it work, I had to take off the crank and file down all of the teeth thinner so that the flexible chain would fit on it without catching on the teeth. I also had to figure out how to mount the derailleur on the frame and where to drill the holes to mount it (no other bike to look at), and then of course I had to run cables and a shifter. I didn't get any praise from my parents for this. It was just something that I needed to do to continue to be able to get around. I guess, today parents take their children everywhere and then buy them cars when they are 16.
The friend who sold me the five-speed hub wheel was the same one who taught himself out of play the tuba and auditioned (w/36K fiberglass) out of high school into Pershing's Own with no tuba lessons... the same one who passed away this last year. I believe that - today - the concept of teaching oneself how to do things is foreign to just about everyone, if not inconceivable...
...learning to play the tuba...?? Yeah, I sat next my friend in band, and of course I listened to music on the radio, on my record player, and learned about phrasing and stuff like that - even though I didn't have a name for those things) from listening. I also learned how to be able to write down music from what I heard on the radio or on a record from listening. Even though I didn't know the word "progression", I knew the word "chord". I believe my friend's advantage was maybe that he, his widowed mother, and his brother attended a primitive baptist church - where they sang out of shaped note hymnals and they didn't have an organ or piano in there (ie. If the congregation didn't sing all the parts, the parts wouldn't happen.. so they sang all the parts. Oh yeah: with feeling...so "phrasing ".)
We weren't poor, but - certainly by today's standards - we certainly lived in the middle of a "poor" neighborhood (with no one else considering themselves poor either) and also by today's standards our school (absolutely no toilet paper, and certainly no air conditioning) be considered poor - considering the facilities and the equipment. I'm thinking those factors may have been advantages as well... along with the fact that our parents allowed us to move about and find out things by being out in the world, as - when there actually might have been a robbery or a murder - it was huge news, as those things were unheard of.

[BRS]

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[Mary Ann]

Not really off topic; I have noted that people who end up working for themselves often are those who simply won't fit anywhere as an employee because they aren't able/willing to take orders from someone who is less bright than they are, and/or they can't deal with the boredom of lack of proper creative challenge. I've seen it a lot.

The fixit types, of whom I have known quite a few, have a talent that I incredibly admire because I don't have it. You find a lot of those people in electronics, btw, and you'll find some of them fixing cars. I suspect many who COULD do that just get sucked into working for others because of lack of opportunity to really do what they want, and then they take on family responsibilities and it goes from there. it is both a difficult and a rewarding way to make a living.

[bloke]

...OK...but a monkey had to have to have looked at a cocoanut, a rock, and have had it occur to that monkey that the rock could substitute for their fist.
What defines me as so less able to reason - compared to a monkey - that I can't look at an array of tools - mounted on a wall and stored in cabinets, look at a problem that I have to solve, and see that one or more of those things could help me solve my problem - and withOUT there needing to be another person there (which there almost never was) to "show" me which tool to select...??

re: my Dad
a good, well-meaning, and extremely strong person (who worked in coal strip-pits in southwest Kansas as a teenager during the summers)...
I NEVER asked him to help me "fix" stuff, because he would break tools and and break bolts.
He was really good at SOME things around the house (not many, and not much of a mechanic). MOSTLY, he was good at managing a couple hundred people at one of the regional SEARS catalog centers, being president of a SEARS credit union, and gently advising other employees - employees with childish whims of boat-buying and such - to consider "not".

my brother (who also knew to not ask my Dad for "help")
Just before he moved out of the house (c. age 19) he managed to get a 55" Chevy Belair to limp home to our driveway. He had never done engine work...OK, he may (??) have bought a Chiltons...but he went to the store, and bought everything to rebuild that 265 cu. in. (same engine as with the Corvette, at that time), removed the head, then removed the block, (all on a huge piece of cardboard in the driveway), and commenced rebuilding it.
He was doing that with a drop-cord right behind our one-car garage. My Dad went out there and reminded my brother that he needed to leave for work early the next morning and was blocked in. My brother assured him that he would have it all put back together by then.
By 6 A.M., my brother's Belair was back together, running, and parked on the street.

People don't always need other people standing by - "live" and talking to them, to - via direct interaction - learn to do things (ie. things that are considerably more complex than me - just as with the monkey - looking at tools on the wall, and deciding which one might be the best to try - in order to solve a problem with a damaged instrument). There are books 'n' stuff. My tuba friend bought tuba etude books (such as few were available) and worked out of them several hours each night (every night). When he ran out of tuba stuff, he worked out of things like (trumpet) Arban, (clarinet) Klose, (oboe) Ferling, (trombone) Rochut, and whatever he could find...and no adults "found" that stuff FOR him, there was no "internet", and there certainly were no "online discussion lists". He knew (from the books he bought) who William Bell was, but Mr. Bell died when my friend was still in junior high school (even HAD his mother allowed him to make long-distance phone calls).

I have another friend (referred to here often) who retired having been the manager (they don't use fancy titles in that industry...Basically, he was a superintendent) of a power plant...no "college"...no "training" (other than his original 6-weeks course on how to be a control room operator...a course whereby engineering degrees were possessed by everyone else in the class - compared to a couple of AP science classes that he had taken in high school)...but he read books outside of high school...LOTS of books. He also taught himself to blacksmith (with no one around him who did that sort of thing), etc, etc., etc...

It takes a village.
It takes initiative, so called "common sense", and - often - a book.

[BRS]

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[bloke]

I did. Absolutely.

[Three Valves]

I did. Absolutely.

...OK...but a monkey had to have to have looked at a cocoanut, a rock, and have had it occur to that monkey that the rock could substitute for their fist.
What defines me as so less able to reason - compared to a monkey - that I can't look at an array of tools - mounted on a wall and stored in cabinets, look at a problem that I have to solve, and see that one or more of those things could help me solve my problem - and withOUT there needing to be another person there (which there almost never was) to "show" me which tool to select...??

Not taught you as in, “first you do this, then that…” Taught you by example, to working things out, take initiative, know quality (or lack there of), etc. Essentially, we’re saying the same thing, but taking different tacks.

Or did you just call yourself a monkey?!

He even wears a monkey suit once in a while to prove it!

[tylerferris1213]

I'm a newer "journeyman" repair tech, and I was lucky enough to find someone to apprentice under. Yeah, it took about ten years of banging on his door and begging, but he finally agreed to teach me. There are some older repair techs who treat everything they do as a trade secret, and that's a shame. Most repair techs, though, are quite open about their techniques if you have a genuine interest in figuring out what they do. My mentor (J.c. Sherman) has taught me a TON. Another tuba specialist I've learned a lot from is Lee Stofer. I probably reach out to him at least once a month to pick his brain about a project that has me stumped. He even let me shadow him in his shop for a day, and it all it cost me was an 18 hour round trip drive lol. I think we all know @bloke has never been shy about sharing his experience with everyone.

I for one believe that knowledge is better when it's shared, and so I've taken on my own apprentice. Yeah, he'll probably learn enough to start making money and then leave to start his own venture, but that's ok. What's important is passing down that knowledge.

[bloke]

I don't have any secrets, other than I actually am able to wear a satin white tuxedo when I'm repairing tubas - without getting a single smudge or spot on it (I mean the tuba. The satin white tuxedo has to go in the trash.)

This is not elegant work, and - after a few years, it's just like any other job that perhaps started out as being somewhat interesting. Even when modifying my own instruments, I'm not finding the work to be fascinating. Rather, I'm interested in getting done - so that the tuba (AFTER the work is done) is easier for me to play. In other words, I'm not into the "journey", but only into the results.

I post threads because other people seem to like hearing about and looking at that stuff. I'm sure that - to those who don't have to actually do the work, it's a lot more interesting than a current inane sitcom or the only-embeciles-could-believe-it (so-called) "news"... just like those reality shows - where people remodel houses, salvage old logs and build new log houses, dig for gold, and those sorts of things, it only requires minutes of their time to follow weeks of someone's else time...and they can do so without becoming filthy.

[BRS]

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[bloke]

I started - maybe - a year before you, so right at the same time. The guy who talked me into working for him (and his fledgling little company - which he abandoned a year later) told me that this sort of work is recession (and even depression) proof. When the economy is good, people have money to fix up stuff and - when the economy is bad - they are looking to fix up stuff, because it's cheaper than buying new stuff.

That sounds like a pair of statements that don't follow and don't make any sense, but - actually - they do.

What I am trying to emphasize over and over is that this is filthy and difficult work. Most people who are looking towards careers these days are looking for things that are neither of those, as a very large percentage of the world's filthy and difficult work is now done overseas. A lot of young people work out in gyms and such, but I believe they probably have no idea how strong their forearms, wrists, and fingers need to be to be able to do these things, and all day long, all week long, and all year long - year in and year out out - for decades...
...and - if someone works really hard and is only pretty good at this stuff, they're going to have to deal with people (employers, supervisors, and customers) picking over their very hard and diligently-executed work, and having them point out its imperfections, and their going to have to pony up when particularly bad boo-boos - or unexpected structural failures - occur that might not even be their fault... unless they work for someone else, and at that point they need to be concerned about being able to keep their job - depending on the costs of the catastrophic event(s). Every once in awhile, these are going to occur with everyone. Gratefully, they've happened with me with less, way less, far less, and almost-never frequency. A thing to keep in mind is that everything we're working on isn't all that much more sturdy than hard clay.