Buffet English Horn Bonus Post 3 - Bore Repair

Prologue: I didn't do this repair. In this scenario, for once, I was the customer. David Teitelbaum did this work, and reminded me of my vast appreciation for the skills of more experienced and seasoned technicians like him. His skills and the quality of his work made the full restoration of this instrument possible. Beyond that the insight he provided into his process was immensely informative as I worked on the clarinet bore sleeve detailed in this recent post. More on that later...

Rebuilding my personal english horn was a labor of love. But it was also a labor of wanting to have a functional english horn. So after putting in that time making parts and sealing cracks and fitting keys and replacing pads and corks I ended up with an instrument that was playable. Technically playable. But it was only after putting in all that work that I looked for other underlying problems. My approach is not always methodical.

I'd observed that something was weird with the bore upper joint, but I see lots of weird stuff and didn't worry about it. Turns out I should have. The more I played the instrument, the more it seemed to misbehave. Low notes would growl as if trying to jump the octave. High notes were difficult to bring up to pitch. Intonation throughout the instrument was very inconsistent. In searching for the cause I found a crack in the upper joint that was causing problems. After that was pinned and sealed the whole range became a little easier to play. Then I made a new octave mechanism on the suspicion that the original, convoluted mechanism was causing the octave pads to not seal. That made the low notes more predictable, but not great. Something still wasn't right. Something was still horribly wrong. I continued to recheck the pad work and regulations, making adjustments wherever possible. It was a shot to my ego to not be able to play an instrument I'd put so much careful work and dedicated so much time to.

All along that weird spot in the upper joint was in the front of my mind. I knew it was probably the cause of all those problems, but was reluctant to face that fact after putting in so much time on the rest of the instrument. What if it couldn't be fixed and all of that work was for nothing? How could I have been foolish enough to put in all that work while overlooking something so serious? But like a papercut, you can't look away and wince forever. Eventually you have to open your eyes and inspect the damage. Then you get someone in New York to make you a new thumb and graft it on. Nevermind, the analogy kind of breaks down there.

Really taking a close look and seeing how horribly the bore had been gouged out I felt at once exasperation and relief. Exasperation at having my fears confirmed, that I had put so much time into an instrument with such a glaring and fatal problem; relief that maybe my work didn't suck so much after all. It looked like someone had gotten a swab stuck up there and had just gone to town with a screwdriver trying to get it out. (When David called me with his assessment, he said it looked like someone had drilled it out.) It was a surprising amount of damage. The fact that the instrument played at all was remarkable.

I was in a tough spot because I strongly suspected that this repair was beyond my abilities. (Hindsight: Yeah, it totally was.) But I had put a lot of time and effort into this instrument, and wasn't prepared to let it be a total failure yet. Fortunately a conversation with another oboe technician yielded the good news I needed: it could be fixed, but there were only two techs in the US who would attempt it. He advised calling David Teitelbaum.

So I called and shipped it off. David called me when it first arrived at his shop to talk about how intensive the work would be and the likelihood of success (he was cautiously optimistic, but I had the utmost confidence), and then I just sort of waited for another call. This was the first time I've been an instrument repair customer in at least a decade and it was unusual. Usually I know exactly what's going on with a repair, but this time, with my own instrument, I just knew that it was in the shop and would be done at some point and would play better than it had. I hate not knowing, but the experience was a reminder that I need to do a better job communicating with my customers about the progress of their repairs.

Skip to five weeks later and I got another call that the repair had been a success and everything was good to go. A few days later I was playing it and it was thrilling. David took the instrument and brought it back from the brink of uselessness. Where before I could sort of muscle my way through some passages, now it just plays. It plays easily! And consistently in tune! It's a powerful instrument. There's not a great deal of depth to the sound, but it will really project through an ensemble texture. And whatever it lacks in nuance it makes up for in ease of playability.

What could have quickly become a folly on my part was redeemed by someone who took the time to develop their skills. I always hope that people will be excited to play their instruments after I've worked on them, so it was nice to be on the other side of that transaction.

I am regularly impressed by the skills of other technicians made evident through their work, and I'm fortunate to see work that is inspiring and informative from colleagues who are willing to share their experience. In this case, hearing David's explanation and asking a few good questions was helpful in developing a strategy for the clarinet bore graft that I just completed. Between the insight I got from talking to him and Mark Jacobi, that instrument went from a lost cause (in my hands), to a long shot, to a feasible job, to a successful and completed repair. It was exciting that while David was doing that work on my instrument, I was able to do a similar (but lets face it, much simpler) repair for my customer.

It's invigorating to develop and refine a new skill that can be useful to another musician. It's exciting, too, to be that musician and know that someone who has spent years honing their skills is putting them into practice on your instrument. I was grateful at having this opportunity to be reminded of those things.