Professional Tune Ups:
Professional Tune Ups can be quite different from other jobs, but not simply because the customer is a professional, I don't go out of my way to treat professionals better than amateurs or students. However, professionals attain a physical awareness of the responsiveness of their instrument from years of dedication, giving them a highly nuanced understanding of how their horn responds on a subtle level. With student players I often need to educate them about these subtleties, but with professionals it is taken for granted that any work I do is done with these subtleties already clear in mind.
This physical awareness separates advanced players from beginners because they've formed a symbiotic relationship with their horn and are attuned with its response on many levels: in different ranges, in the key work action, in the requisite throat positions for voicing, in the variation of color produced by different tones - aka 'depth of harmonic spectrum detectable', in the clarity of tones and articulation of fast passages, in the balance of resistance in the air column, and so on. This is all experienced on a very subtle level of physicality and it is the foundation of this deep relationship.
Professional Tune Ups can be quite different from other jobs, but not simply because the customer is a professional, I don't go out of my way to treat professionals better than amateurs or students. However, professionals attain a physical awareness of the responsiveness of their instrument from years of dedication, giving them a highly nuanced understanding of how their horn responds on a subtle level. With student players I often need to educate them about these subtleties, but with professionals it is taken for granted that any work I do is done with these subtleties already clear in mind.
This physical awareness separates advanced players from beginners because they've formed a symbiotic relationship with their horn and are attuned with its response on many levels: in different ranges, in the key work action, in the requisite throat positions for voicing, in the variation of color produced by different tones - aka 'depth of harmonic spectrum detectable', in the clarity of tones and articulation of fast passages, in the balance of resistance in the air column, and so on. This is all experienced on a very subtle level of physicality and it is the foundation of this deep relationship.
Normal wear and tear inevitably creates mechanical problems, these problems break this connection, and successive levels of nuance become inaccessible as each new mechanical discrepancy is introduced. It's my job to reconnect the artist with those subtle levels of responsiveness by correcting all the mechanical problems. If I do my job well, the symbiotic relationship between the artist and their horn will be repaired as well.
This is complicated by the fact that professionals have the "chops" to deal with mechanical problems that otherwise undermine this symbiotic relationship. Professionals can often get past these mechanical issues and still play the horn adequately. While they do loose connectivity to the subtle physical relationship they share with the instrument, they have to work harder to access it. They have to work harder to utilize their expressive devices. This hampers their ability to express themselves, but they manage to get by for some time. When they finally make it to the shop I usually hear a variation on the following:
"The horn plays fine, really. I just played a gig last night. I just know there's more the horn can give me. It must be a small fix."
"The horn is playing fine, but there are things I can hear in my mind that I can't get out of the horn as quickly or as easily as I once did."
"Sometimes I feel like I'm working a little too hard, but I can play it. I mean, it plays fine. I'd even say it plays great. It doesn't need all that much work, just those little things."
It is my job to reconnect them with "the things they hear in their minds but can't get out of the horn." It's my job to make the horn give what the player knows it is capable of but isn't. And this is why Professional Tune Ups are different. The language used to describe the problems is insufficient to meet the actual degree of the mechanical issues, and correcting those issues usually runs upwards of $500 or $600. YES, there are times when the adjustments need to be made quickly, or they are done in such a way as to strategically ignore select problems for expediency in a While-You-Wait Repair, but that's not what we are talking about. We're talking about a real tune up, and more often than not these jobs fall within that higher price range.
The horn might look satisfactory to me upon the first several inspections - meaning it's not an obvious train-wreck of a job - especially given the fact that the owners often express their pleasure with the overall response of the horn. But once I begin scrutinizing things on a granular level, a veritable laundry list of reasons why the have actually come to the shop unfolds before me. Mechanical issues equal in nuance and subtlety distributed across all systems of the horn reveal themselves under closer inspection and I know from experience that all of them need to be addressed if the relationship is to be repaired. Anything less will be unsatisfactory. And you better believe a professional that described their horn as already playing fine during the consultation will have an oscilloscopic ability to detect tonal discrepancies, a neurosurgeon's sense of touch, and a reiki masters skill to detect balance in the air column when they come to check the work and play test the horn.
This is complicated by the fact that professionals have the "chops" to deal with mechanical problems that otherwise undermine this symbiotic relationship. Professionals can often get past these mechanical issues and still play the horn adequately. While they do loose connectivity to the subtle physical relationship they share with the instrument, they have to work harder to access it. They have to work harder to utilize their expressive devices. This hampers their ability to express themselves, but they manage to get by for some time. When they finally make it to the shop I usually hear a variation on the following:
"The horn plays fine, really. I just played a gig last night. I just know there's more the horn can give me. It must be a small fix."
"The horn is playing fine, but there are things I can hear in my mind that I can't get out of the horn as quickly or as easily as I once did."
"Sometimes I feel like I'm working a little too hard, but I can play it. I mean, it plays fine. I'd even say it plays great. It doesn't need all that much work, just those little things."
It is my job to reconnect them with "the things they hear in their minds but can't get out of the horn." It's my job to make the horn give what the player knows it is capable of but isn't. And this is why Professional Tune Ups are different. The language used to describe the problems is insufficient to meet the actual degree of the mechanical issues, and correcting those issues usually runs upwards of $500 or $600. YES, there are times when the adjustments need to be made quickly, or they are done in such a way as to strategically ignore select problems for expediency in a While-You-Wait Repair, but that's not what we are talking about. We're talking about a real tune up, and more often than not these jobs fall within that higher price range.
The horn might look satisfactory to me upon the first several inspections - meaning it's not an obvious train-wreck of a job - especially given the fact that the owners often express their pleasure with the overall response of the horn. But once I begin scrutinizing things on a granular level, a veritable laundry list of reasons why the have actually come to the shop unfolds before me. Mechanical issues equal in nuance and subtlety distributed across all systems of the horn reveal themselves under closer inspection and I know from experience that all of them need to be addressed if the relationship is to be repaired. Anything less will be unsatisfactory. And you better believe a professional that described their horn as already playing fine during the consultation will have an oscilloscopic ability to detect tonal discrepancies, a neurosurgeon's sense of touch, and a reiki masters skill to detect balance in the air column when they come to check the work and play test the horn.