Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2008-01-18 12:45
>>I had a similar problem with a tech in VA who goes by the name of Tony Valenti (a LOT of people on this board are familiar with him and his service/tendencies). The man does incredible technician work but as far as timing goes, he leaves something to be desired. He took a year on my Eb.
>>
LOL! Yeah, Tony Valenti restored my 1926 C. G. Conn bass sax. He kept it for more than a year. I didn't hassle him about it because I was getting the work done through Peter Ferrante at Presto Brass & Woodwinds (Arlington), who farmed the job out to Mr. Valenti. I figured I could leave it up to Mr. Ferrante (who does excellent work himself and is generally prompt with clarinets, btw) to goose the job along as necessary. Also, I figured that getting it right on a huge, extremely obsolete sax was not so simple. Glad I stayed patient, because Mr. Valenti did a fabulous job of bringing an extremely damaged instrument (the previous owner had accidentally dropped it on the floor) back to excellent condition. While I think that it's unreasonable for a technician to keep a clarinet for more than a year, when the clarinet is as modern as an R-13, sometimes a job is worth a long wait.
I also empathize with the technician's problem of getting the right parts, because before I retired my stained glass studio, I sometimes had the same difficulty with getting glass that matched broken antique pieces when I did restoration jobs. Acquiring hand-cast glass in just the right color and texture to match a 150-year-old window could take forever. I used to warn clients in advance that I might keep their lamps or windows for a year or even more, and I wrote the warning into the contract, because there was no way I could force the glassmakers to fork over. They had their kiln schedules and their color schedules, and if they didn't have what I needed already on hand, then they'd throw it when they'd throw it and I knew that if, meanwhile, I threw tantrums, I'd end up at the back of the line.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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The Clarinet BBoard
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