Klarinet Archive - Posting 000522.txt from 2003/04
From: Kenneth Wolman <kenneth.wolman@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Tom Ohme link
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:37:38 -0400
At 08:47 PM 4/13/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>http://www.woodwind-shop.com/Calendar.html
>
>Here's the link to Tom's website.
I looked at the website and noted the following, a bit ruefully:
>Thomas Ohme Woodwind Service and The Woodwind Shop Corporation will be in
>the hands of a new financial management team this (April) 2003. A proven
>team with success in the professional music industry, this will make it
>possible for Thomas to devote his time to the repair bench full time.
If you have a problem you try to get assistance, and it would seem that
this gentleman is doing that--getting out of the money end of the business
and doing what he seems to do well. A maker or repairperson who doesn't
have a business head can be a disaster to himself and others.
Briefly: I have alluded before to an experience with the Irish uilleann
pipes, a very difficult double reed instrument played with a bellows, air
bag, and chanter which conceals a reed about the size of that in a
bassoon. I ordered these last February, didn't see them until May, and by
then was in a dispute with the maker and credit card company over
non-delivery. The set WAS delivered but then the card company went banko
in July and is now in the hands of another bank.
Part of the problem was that the maker tried to be his own business manager
and he had no skill at it. He crafted nice pipes but kept his receipts,
accounts receivable, etc, in bags, in drawers, wherever. He could not even
help out his own branch of the Bank of Ireland by providing paperwork to
help trace the alleged payment from my Visa company. Ultimately I gave
up. After months of no communication and repeated difficulties trying to
learn an instrument that had nothing to do with me (it really had begun to
feel as though it had a curse on it), I sold the pipes on eBay (where
else?) to a guy in Utah for not that much less than I paid for them and
bought that Noblet 40 instead from Musiqueworld in San Antonio. I assume
the Irish maker got paid for the pipes. In any case part of a check I
write every month to the nonexistent NextCard company has to do with these
pipes, so my hands are clean.
Some repairmen and builders can survive in the not necessarily intersecting
worlds of art and commerce. Mr. Ohme, it appears, could not, any more than
could my Wild Irish bagpipemaker whose reputation for craftsmanship is very
high but whose reputation as a businessman suggests "s--t for brains."
Ken
----------------------------------------
Kenneth
Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
If we all carry a little of the burden, it will be lightened. If we share
in the suffering of the world, then some will not have to endure so heavy
an affliction. It evens out.
-- Dorothy Day
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