Clarinets are not usually my thing, but challenges are. This job involved removing the old, damaged peg holder and silver soldering a new one, which I will show in a video below in the future.
The challenge for this job was in completing an adjustment on this clients lower stack. I have not worked on a bass clarinet before, but as always, it’s just a matter of trying it until it works. I don’t charge for the additional time it takes me to learn the skills to tackle the project correctly, that is a benefit to me at this point.
This job reminded me of how I began working on saxophones and the amount of mistakes I was making early on. Reflecting on my problems now and why I don’t really have them anymore, it just simply comes down to me knowing the saxophone better: when the job calls for key bending or just a change in adjustment materials. It took some time for this to become ingrained in a way that I could think less cautiously about my work (more knowledgable, not sloppier), and I am glad to have been reminded of it here. Thinking of a job key by key focuses my mind a lot better than thinking on the macro level of thinking of the job as one unit, and I am going to consciously return this to my work on saxophones.
With my limited experience on bass clarinets, I don’t recommend just bending keys by hand. I did not have any problems on this job, but I made sure to use tools to leverage the bending of keys and arms without torquing against the posts on the wooden body. Saxophones are more forgiving, although tools are always better for controlling key angles than just your bare hands.