 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ACCA
Date: 2025-06-26 23:42
https://www.change.org/p/save-the-newark-school-of-musical-instrument-crafts
Newark College's School of Musical Instrument Crafts in Lincolnshire, UK, is facing potential closure. The school, renowned for its BA (Hons) Musical Instrument Craft degrees in guitar, piano, violin, and woodwind making and repair, is facing suspension due to low application numbers and financial losses. The potential closure has sparked concern among students, alumni, and the wider music industry, as it would be the only UK institution offering a degree in stringed instrument making.
Newark College formerly offered BA (Hons) degrees in Musical Instrument Craft, specializing in guitar, piano, violin, and woodwind making and repair.
The school has a strong international reputation for producing highly skilled craftspeople and has close links with industry professionals and organizations.
Lincoln College Group, which oversees the Newark campus, has announced that there will be no new intake of students in 2025 and 2026. This suspension threatens the continuation of the degree programs and the skills they impart.
Their website now only shows foundation courses in guitar and violin making.
Lincoln College has cited low application numbers for the suspension, stating that the courses have been running at a substantial loss for the past three years. They have stated in press releases that they are exploring redesigning the program to better meet student and employer needs. However, the closure of the school would mean the loss of the only UK degree course in instrument making and repair. By not offering these courses as a degree, students lose accesss to normal university funding options, making such options inaccessible for many.
Please help ensure the training of future generations of woodwind, brass, and instrument techs by signing this petition: https://www.change.org/p/save-the-newark-school-of-musical-instrument-crafts
thank you!
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Author: David H. Kinder
Date: 2025-06-27 05:58
Get more enrollments and it won't cancel.
Show support with dollars and enrollments, not signatures, particularly from us across the pond.
Get instrument makers to make sponsorships and scholarships available.
Economics (supply & demand) apply to everything, including academics.
Ridenour AureA Bb clarinet
Ridenour Homage mouthpiece
Vandoren Optimum Silver ligature (plate 1)
Vandoren Traditional and V.12 #4 reeds
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Author: ACCA
Date: 2025-06-27 12:02
Step 1 is for the decision makers to hear from the instrument-playing community that this matters.
This school was attended from students worldwide.
currently, if they take away the degree pathway, they take away the opportunities for international students to get a student visa, and uk students to enroll with student finance, so we can't support with dollars (or Pounds as they're called over here) and enrollments...
The industry wants to preserve this institution and keep student coming there:
https://www.dawkes.co.uk/sound-room/saving-newark-college-the-future-of-instrument-repair/?srsltid=AfmBOoqWeplqsMzYghCugppGrcGvI4eePgFOxKGUlYwxoGMLphDa8a-C
Change is needed, but it's critical for those making decision, at both the institutional and government level, to know that this stuff matters.
I'm still in my thirties. When I'm at retirement age and have more time to play my horns, I want there to be someone who can maintain them. I don't think I'm alone in wanting that.
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Author: David H. Kinder
Date: 2025-06-27 19:58
Reread this:
> Lincoln College has cited low application numbers for the
> suspension, stating that the courses have been running at a
> substantial loss for the past three years.
Then reread what I wrote:
> Get more enrollments and it won't cancel.
> Show support with dollars and enrollments, not signatures, particularly from us across the pond.
> Get instrument makers to make sponsorships and scholarships available.
> Economics (supply & demand) apply to everything, including academics.
You're trying to 'sell' the wrong people! The program sponsors that I recommended need to help with getting the word out to increase enrollment!
Programs and businesses don't usually collapse with too much demand and enrollment.
Signatures don't produce dollars.
Ridenour AureA Bb clarinet
Ridenour Homage mouthpiece
Vandoren Optimum Silver ligature (plate 1)
Vandoren Traditional and V.12 #4 reeds
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2025-07-02 19:31
Just to be clear, this isn't the first of such courses to close in the UK. London Metropolitan University used to run courses in musical instrument technology/making. It's where Ed Pillinger, the mouthpiece maker, did his training and later PhD. Now all those courses have gone, for the same reasons. At the same institution, there were also course in jewellery and furniture design and making. Craft courses like all these are very expensive to maintain, but crucially, student numbers are generally very few. That's not just because of the practical restrictions of workshops size/bench numbers (health and safety etc), but there just aren't enough people wanting to do these courses to sustain their future. That inevitably leads to closure.
Unfortunately, it'll be for current designers/makers and repairers, to use some sort of apprenticeship system to create the next generation. Of course, in the UK, we used to have systems for training the next generation of craftsman in many areas, but that's all gone. Even the trades have trouble. Employers only seem to want people trained in the exact thing they'll work on. Qualifications are mostly narrow, and done on the cheap, with suspect, private training organisations. Paying for a general level of accredited expertise isn't in most companies plans or budgets. If only we had systems like those in Germany. I hear US craftsmen saying the same thing.
If I wanted to do such a course these days, I'd go to Germany and do all I could to get accepted by one of their master instrument makers.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2025-07-20 20:32
Hi,
I wondered if I could contribute to this? My son is training in clarinet repair at the moment and has customers on the community who offer to pay him for his work.
I think it would be great if the lecturers could put as much of their knowledge on youtube and into books as they can, if they are going to close this course. We are learning a ton from youtube, and my son has already read two complete long books on woodwind instrument repair and learned a huge amount from them.
There are loads of kids who don't have the wherewithall to travel to a university far away to train like this, but who can train at home through the internet. My son is one of them, but he is a hard worker and is learning a huge amoung working here at home. If they could even move some of the lessons to zoom, then they could get a lot more students.
I realise that some of the skills involved need to be shown in person, but if the course is going to close, then I think it would be well worth thinking about these options.
The other thing to note, is that clarinet repair jobs will never be replaced by AI. That is a real concern for young people coming through, and well worth mentioning.
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2025-07-21 12:38
SunnyDaze. That's a good suggestion. There could be residential weeks for the very hands-on elements. Those could be in between the semesters of the other courses at the institution, saving the need to have special accommodation. However, that doesn't deal with the problem and expense of having to maintain workshops full of equipment. But perhaps those could be rented out to local repairers during semester. That might be a partial solution. The critical problem is the very low numbers of people wanting to do this sort of study, or even knowing it could be a career choice.
When AI has taken a significant portion of existing work options away, people might well look toward this sort of occupation as a career option.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2025-07-21 21:36
Hi JTJC,
Thank for replying.
It's a really hard problem to look at, this one, for anyone who is not currently living with a teenager. The world is super super hard for teens at the moment, for a whole range of reasons. It would be very hard for people to understand if they are not living in this teen world. In the last year alone in the UK 92,000 kids in the UK have deregisted from schools because the underfunded, post-covid, post-Brexit, understaffed school environment was toxic for them.
The proportion of kids with neurodiversity and social communication problems is increasing in a really worrying way. At the same time, kids are struggling very badly with their mental health because of being stuck in front of screens all day at school, without a specialist teacher, while being so screen-focussed at home as well. Being taught by apps and AI is really not good for them.
At the same time the NHS is really struggling here. The doctors and hospitals are very focussed on bed blocking and the over-80s and there is very little help for young people.
It all piles up to make the pressure on teens so difficult.
I learned a huge amount from a BBoard post a few years ago by a contributer whose name I think was squidward. He was saying that he wanted to cut down on computer gaming time to focus on his clarinet. My son and I read a ton of stuff about computer gaming and dopamine addiction after that thread, and realised how bad screen time was for teens.
Following that my son and I switched from doing a lot of screentime to working hard on clarinet repairs skills. Doing this manual, screen-free work has been great for us. However, there's a huge gulf between doing clarinet repair for pleasure, and being confident enough to commit to a lifetime career in it.
We're having to go to private organisations rather than the state for both schooling and healthcare now. The idea of diving into a career in clarinet repair when the public services are just not there is a very very big ask for a young person. But the other options look worrying too.
With this all in mind, I think there is probably a "big picture" thing that needs to be examined here. The course sounds wonderful, and so worth keeping. However, I think they urgently need to talk to todays' teens about how to move forward, because life for this generation is just totally different from the ones that went before. It's properly hard.
And that's before we even think about climate change and AI and all that other stuff that's coming down the pipe.
Sorry for giving the long version here, but I would love if the people on this course could step into the teen world and think about what to do, because it really is hard for youngsters just now. It sounds like the folks who run this course could possibly throw some of them a rope, and that would be very valuable.
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2025-07-21 23:59
Sorry to add more, but if you wanted to reach the teens that I know, this would be what you would do. Some of these questions are quite pointy, but this the world that teens live in right now.
1) Put videos on youtube, like these city and guilds one to advertise the course:
https://www.youtube.com/@cityandguildselectrical
2) Talk about the career that the course leads to, covering the following points:
- Talk about why clarinet repair is a viable alternative to being an electrician/plumber or other trade.
- what would be a realistic salary.
- where would the tech have to live to have a decent catchment area for customers (London / other cities / rural)
- what is the cost of living there (house prices, schools, travel, food etc)
- what is the area like for crime (drugs, knife crime, county lines)
- what is access to healthcare like there.
- Can this be done remotely, with clarinets being posted.
- is it a lot of repetitive work with risk of RSI, and how do established techs cope long term?
- Is there is a professional organisation for woodwind techs, possibility of clubbing together for private healthcare etc?
- are clarinet techs friendly to one another or is there bad feeling between competitors.
3) What is the Newark course like:
- Is it small group teaching, in-person, with skilled staff?
- Do the young people have time to practise their skills and actually think about what they are doing, or is it very time pressured and competitive.
- How much time is spent in large groups, watching youtube videos in silence. Is there teaching or examination using with apps, videos or AI.
- Does the course cover business skills like accountancy and web design, and coding so as to have an online shop, or is it all traditional clarinet repair skills.
- On the engineering side, do they also cover modern techniques like 3D printing and use of CAD software like Autodesk Fusion.
- How many years does the course last, and what are the fees.
- is the location decent for cost of living, crime, healthcare as discussed above?
- What level of debt do the students leave with from cost of living and fees, and do they ever earn enough to pay that debt off.
- Is the environment human and kind, or is there toxicity and bullying against the staff and students, potential sexual assault stuff and so on.
- if a kid drops out with mental health problems, are they cut off and pushed out or are they still allowed to visit and see their friends to say cheerio and valued as an alumnus?
- Is there an option to do the course fully or partly remotely for young people who are not able to relocate due to neurodiversity, caring responsibilities, poverty or whatever. This might especially be a question for young people who are already living close to a good woodwind repair shop, or a makerspace, or a good technical college, where they could do the practical stuff.
- Are you looking for musicians who can be taught engineering or engineers who can be taught music. Does the tech need to be able to play every instrument that he repairs to a high level.
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
Post Edited (2025-07-22 00:01)
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