Discuss Music

The instrument repair industry is an interesting one. Most of the time, it seems as though the real repair businesses are passed down through the family, or focus on training apprentices. There are also business conglomerates that don’t actually know what they’re doing – be aware of these (the dude that works at Guitar Center might be able to sweet talk about the “in” strings and pedals to buy for your guitar, but he doesn’t really know what is going on when your B string is buzzing at the 10th fret). Schools specifically offering instrument repair and maintenance are hard to come by, and when I was a music student at a state university I didn’t hear one sentence about fixing your own instrument.

Now, I realize that creating, cleaning and properly repairing instruments is an art that should be preserved and respected, and there are some jobs that should definitely be left to the professionals. However, if you are a working musician and a little short on cash these days, there are probably some things that will go wrong with your instrument that you can fix yourself. A lot of repair and maintenance procedures are much easier than they seem.

It really angers me when I see a young kid walk into a guitar shop and pay $20 to get new strings put on his guitar (plus $8 for the strings – they’re usually not included). This tells me two things: one, his teacher (if he has one) works at that same business; two, this kid knows nothing about how his guitar works. If you are a novice guitarist who is still getting strings changed at the store, check this out . You will learn how easy it is to save yourself a lot of money – especially considering that you should actually change your guitar strings about every two weeks!

This is only one example, though. Let’s take a piano . Most pianists never look inside their instrument. They have them tuned, fixed, and adjusted by professionals. However, if there is a felt tip missing from a hammer that hits the strings, it would probably cost you a lot less to buy some felt and glue.

Don’t get me wrong. If there’s a giant crack in your violin, don’t try to glue it together and think everything will be dandy. But there are a lot of resources out there that will teach basic repairs. Get to know your instrument better – part of being a musician is understanding your instrument and knowing what limits you have in your own ability to fix it.

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