Brass And Woodwind Repair Video Series #1: Stuck 3rd Trumpet Tuning Slide

In the past several months, I have put a few videos on YouTube about brass and woodwind repairs. One of them shows how to pull the third slide extension on a Bach Stradivarius trumpet. I wanted to put a video of this on YouTube for a while because it is one of the few repairs that most Strad owners can do without damaging it. (And it is an interesting repair that is fun to watch.) The problem was, I did not own a Bach Strad. As soon as I get one in my shop, it is sold. Anyway, a while later, a good-natured customer came into my shop and wanted this very repair. I asked the customer if I could take a video in exchange for a free repair. He gladly agreed and was so interested that he wanted to watch the repair. After the filming was done, he insisted on paying me anyway. We both won. I got the video that I was hoping to get, and he was fascinated and thoroughly enjoyed watching the repair.

Fast forward a few months. The video has been on YouTube and there have been several hundred views with a handful of very positive comments. Then, someone gave a review, saying that you should never do your own repairs and you will destroy your trumpet. A few months later, there was another comment saying about the same thing. I was quite surprised that this caused any controversy. In a way, I found it a little humorous that a tuning slide would do that.

My concerned viewers did have a point. You always do need to use care when doing any brass or woodwind repair. This set my mind to thinking. I got an idea. I could do a series of videos that contain experiments on how much an instrument can take before bad things start to happen. This would hopefully help people know what not to do to their instruments. I have some ideas for experiments that I hope to try in the near future. I will try this and see where it leads.