: Daniel Bangham
: Woodwind Instruments A practical guide for Technicians
: The Crowood Press
: 9780719840302
: 1
: CHF 50.90
:
: Musik, Film, Theater
: English
: 256
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The care and understanding of an instrument are critical to its sound. This thorough book is therefore aimed at both the interested musician and those embarking on instrument repair as a full-time career. Organized into six parts, it guides the reader from initial diagnostic techniques all the way through to specialist repair instruction. It is packed with over 700 colour illustrations, step-by-step guidance and general advice. It covers clarinets, flutes, saxophones, oboes and bassoons. Written by a leading woodwind technician and teacher, it should be an essential companion in every workshop and be a handy reference for all musicians who want the best from their instruments.

Daniel Bangham has been a woodwind technician, repairing and hand-making clarinets for over forty years. After training at Newark Technical College, he left to set up a repair business in Cambridge at the suggestion of Nicholas Shackleton, who wanted help looking after his collection of historic clarinets. A few years later, once the repair business was established, Daniel was invited back to Newark to become the visiting lecturer where he found his love for teaching. By the 1990s he was making instruments for international performers and his work featured as solo instruments on acclaimed recordings. He was also consulting for a number of other manufacturers, as well as managing his repair and retail shop called Woodwind& Reed. In the early 2000s Daniel set up a teaching workshop called Cambridge Woodwind Makers. This workshop gives a venue for visiting specialists to teach their specialist skills to students, who come from around the world.

CHAPTER 1

Initial Dismantle and Reassemble of an Instrument

I am going to start by describing how you can start your repair journey through dismantling and re-assembling an instrument. At this stage you will be identifying problems as you go, but not necessarily fixing them.

Whatever instrument you want to focus on later, I suggest you start by working on clarinets. The skills needed for a clarinet are transferable to other instruments. For your very first attempt, I suggest you use a low-value clarinet, one you can afford to make mistakes on. As soon as you feel confident, use better instruments, ones that are already in good condition. That way you can get familiar with what an instrument should look and feel like, without getting distracted or side-tracked with problems. It is by handling good instruments that we learn what we are trying to achieve.

Basic tools

I remember when I first started my training, I felt overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar tools and equipment. But when it came to the first day of teaching, we started with the basics: a workbench, four hand tools and a few old instruments to take apart and put together. The idea was that we needed to get first-hand experience of dismantling the instruments before we could really understand the study material we were going to cover over the next few years. I am taking a similar approach. You don’t really need to know all the names of the parts or the tools to be able to take it apart and put it together again. Just give it a go. (I will refer to parts of the instrument and processes you might not be familiar with at this stage; please look at the relevant chapters later in the book if you are unclear what I mean.)

Workbench

If you don’t have a dedicated workbench already, create a temporary workbench from a sheet of plywood, with an apron screwed on the front that can hook over the side of an existing table. Add a bench peg to this and you’re all set!

Fig. 1.1 Improvised workbench.

A bench peg is traditionally a piece of hardwood turned on a lathe into a cone. Though this is the preferred shape, there is no reason not to make several pegs in a row, with dowelling of different diameters. They need to stick out about 15mm and be smaller than the bore diameter of the instruments you are working on.

Shaving brush

I have not found any other brush to give the instrument an initial brush down and clean that works better than a shaving brush. The density and stiffness of the bristles are perfect and there is no metallic collar that might scratch the instrument.

Fig. 1.2 Shaving brush.

Screwdrivers

Your choice of screwdriver will be governed by what instruments you will be working on. Different instruments require different sized screwdrivers. The width of the blade needs to match the diameter of the screws you encounter. This is to ensure you do not damage the screw head or the surrounding pillar. The screwdriver blade should be just under the width of the screw head (maybe 0.1 or 0.5mm).

Fig. 1.3 Screwdrivers in three sizes.

Useful blade widths are:

1.95mm for clarinets, oboes and flutes

3mm for saxophones

1.7mm for adjusting screws

The screwdrivers should have long shafts, which will give you better access to screws deep in the keywork. My best screwdrivers have a shaft 150mm long and the handle is another 90mm long (total 240mm) with a 1.95mm and 3mm blade width.

Fig. 1.4 A screwdriver with a long shaft allows you to get to screws deep in the keywork. Notice that I am stea