Interview with Mike Hughes (Tim Wen)

Partial Transcript: T: so actually I really want to learn how to repair a saxophone but you know there's not a lot of ways…
M: because there are not really like two ways: a two-year program or a year and a half program or you can apprentice with someone there's not really… unless you just teach yourself how to do it but I was fortunate enough to have been put with someone that had already been in the industry for good forty plus years you know looking for someone to train you, take on as an apprentice, and I just happen to be at the right place at the right time. It's always kind of been that way I wasn't seeking it. I wasn't like l want to do this is for living. I just got my drivers license I was just like you know here I am and I wanted to work at this music store. i kept going there constantly bugging them magging them eventually they just gave me a job cleaning, taking stuff out of boxes, putting stuff on these shells and stuff like that, and then it turned into they'd go meet this guy you know, see what you can learn and then it turned into a long decade of… more of a friendship bond/grandfather kind of thing. That also came with learning you know but it was also more of a bond you know. So yeah.
T: because I also saw some guitars, and also there are a lot of guitars here. What instruments do you play?
M: well I started out on a guitar that was my first instrument, and then I learned some
Drums… so yeah, I started out on a guitar. My brother was a guitar player, so it was just easy to learn because I could sit down and learn from him, and then it was probably like around high school, maybe like my freshman year I started playing bass, and that's when I started going okay I like I really like that and I stuck with that. I still play guitar but I found myself more as a bass player, and that's what I stuck with from probably like 1994, and all the way up until… I played professionally from 96 summers of 96 all the way up until about 2017. I played professionally in play bass. Yeah, I was in a band, and we got signed to universal records. We had a nice five year.
T: WOW
M: We had an album recorded… three albums. I recorded on two of those and one of them we got to do in LA with a big major label and the whole thing. A couple of songs had some pretty good success. One song in particular uh… the band was called The Earnings the song was here and now, and it appeared on several formats PlayStation games, and Tina six four games. One in particular, was the Tony Hawk for a skateboarder. It was in the first one and then it also made the reissue just last year. They reissued that and we also made the cut for that. So that was kind of like mine… my stamp on music that's like I did that.
T: Yeah
M: I think that's kind of when I realized that repair was definitely gonna be something. It was right after high school I already knew how to do repair because I did do it for a couple of years. I wanted to go on the road and I wanted to experience that, so when I would come home off the road, I went straight to the store and I would just work on. I would learn more on repair an instrument because it was still something I wanted to stay and touch with. Not knowing that it was gonna lead to 28 year later I’m still doing it you know. So that was very fortunate. I had the right people at the right time that kind of just took me in and said hey we're gonna give you some direction take it if you can. It's not that you tried you know and I think for me I just really locked in on it. I love puzzles. I just like putting things together like taking things apart you know. I’ve always been that way so yeah and I didn't do a program or anything like I said I have an apprenticeship, but the gentleman that I apprenticed with Paul Krupp. K R U P P Paul and he had done it all. He worked for repairing instruments way back in the day Conn, King products. He worked well… before that he worked in briefly in New York at the Bach. He played tuba in the Richmond Symphony for twenty-five-plus years. He played upright bass and he played tuba. So I had a lot to learn on those repairs from the guy, I mean he always had something he could offer other than just how to fix something, and the music store I started out with, Southern Music. That's when I was in high school, thanks to David Harville, he kind of set up the platform for me to be able to learn and paid for me to learn. It was a paid apprenticeship too. I was getting paid for the time which was really cool. After a few years, he ended up selling the business to a friend of his and a good friend of mine. Because he was my boss for 15 years, he bought the business I stayed on.
M: I worked for him and his wife Harrison music, Eric Harrison, and he sold the business in 2015 to a company called Music and Arts. Uh… once again my skill set level was up and everything was there, so they needed me to stay. So they hired me to stay on at Music and Arts and that's where I’ve been ever since um… Music and Arts has just been a… it's such a huge environment you know. There are hundreds of storage-crushing days. It's a big incorporation type of thing. But to me, it feels the same as Harrison, Southern. It's a very close-knit family even though you have all these superiors above you. Nobody ever feels like they're superior. Everybody is equal in a way because they all repair. So that's what I really enjoy about working for those guys and a little background on that, I met my wife playing music when I was in the earnings in 1997. I met her and we dated for several years she finally got married in 2003, 2004 actually you know she's always been a huge part. She worked for Music and Arts for 12 years you know, almost a decade of, and then she became ill, she became terminally ill. So music and arts when I got hired by them, they kind of knew my situation that I was a full-time employee but I also had some things going on at home, so they were very receptive and just worked really hard with me to let me kind of set my boundaries and be able to keep my job and also keep my life at home where I wanted it you know. Because my wife has to go to the hospital in 2020, and she later passed that year so it's been 313 days today you know. She's been gone.
M: So music arts to this point has been nothing but in my corner, that's why I’d like to say. I just want to bring that up because you know they really worked with me they let me work from home. I brought my work home. I never worked at the shop for like five years I worked here I never worked there. So they were like… you know do what you do, we need you. You just keep doing what you do, and we'll just you know we'll stay back, and thanks for the playoff. So thanks to them, they were just very supportive throughout that whole journey that we went through. Yeah, so if you look around there's a lot of stuff it's on her. Yeah, we bought the house in 03, and we got married right here. It was really cool. I never could get her to get on the whole banishment thing like repair and stuff I always tried to teach her but she was an artist, she was an illustrator. So she had the mind she could do it, but she didn't want to do it. So she was passionate about her art. I was passionate about my repairing
T: what kind of instrument do you repair
M: also repaired guitar or yeah so um… everything like working on guitars I like working on string instruments cellos and upgrade bases and violin. That's when I started doing the apprenticeship back when I was in high school. I was learning brass, woodwind, and strings. I was learning all because Paul could do it all um. So that was fun during like Southern music and Harrison music I got to work on everything I wanted to. Anything I want to work on I can just work on it um or explore how to work on it because it's a learning process man. You're always gonna find something it's gonna maybe kind of get you to kind of think twice before you do. Something you know like “oh I’ve done this a million times so I think about it first. You only get one shot, you don't want to mess it up you know. Especially when somebody brings in a Mark 6 Tenor/Alto or something that's you know it's gold to them. You don't want to mess it up, but string intimates it was a lot of fun. We actually started pushing those out we send those to our string guy now so I don't need to actually do that many which is fine. I mean I have enough to work on but I love working on saxophones and all brass instruments really. I mean brass is pretty much straightforward. It's either something broke, soldered or something got dinted or something that's stuck
T: yes
M: There are not many other options other than these. So you know the first thing you want to do is always want to just kind of focus on the issue and what you can do without going too far into taking something apart to fix you know. We always joked because there's one guy I worked with when he retired, he had already been in the company for forty years and the joke was if there was a dent in the body of a trumpet, I would just say oh I guess you gotta take the bell off because he would constantly like disassemble horns because he's old-school you know he doesn't want to use newer tools. So he would disassemble something completely to take out a little dent that he could have just gotten completely without having to do that.
M: You know you were talking about something about like um jazz vs classical saxophone
T: yeah yeah actually that's my question
M: so I mean I thought… gave some thought to that because I don't necessarily… I mean there are some horns that probably cater to a darker sound or a brighter sound or just something that's gonna tend to lean more towards a classical player or jazz player but I think it ultimately comes down to the person, the mouthpiece, and the reed like those combinations. The person and the mouthpiece I think that's what kind of changes the… you can take a horn and have the same horn played by three different people with three different monthpieces and it's gonna sound different. It's gonna yeah, so I think it all has a lot to do with the individual and how they approach it.

Keywords: Harrison Music; Music and Arts; apprentice; repair journey; why instrument repair

Partial Transcript: T: okay I try to find resources related to the industry the music maintenance and repair industry here in Richmond but it turns out that there is no information related to it on the Internet
M: no other than: I took my horn here and got it prepared once you know
T: yeah there's no introduction there's no history there's no
M: yeah
T: there's no information related to you know music repair and maintenance industry, and I feel like, for most musicians, it's a really mysterious industry
M: it is I think for musicians they either know somebody that they trust or they go to whomever they know plays that instrument and say whom do you go to like I mean there's always like a tunnel you gotta navigate to get to. Sometimes it seems like that way because I've been here 20 years and people are like how long have you been doing I've never met you? like I'm like I've been here like my entire life what do you mean I've been doing this for 20 years
T: yeah
M: and they're just finding out you know. they've been here 10 years you know but it's sometimes banishment people don't always get their horn specs either like they'll play through issues on their horns.
T: yeah
M: until they don't really until they can't play and then like I gotta get fixed
T: yeah just like me
M: but I mean what the fact is you as a player can compensate for imperfections and horns and stuff so that just shows you that you are a good player because some people who are a great player. You know you can get more horn and it's got leaves in it, and they're gonna they can't manage it. They can't figure it out where some people can. well if I press a little harder here or if I light off a little bit here, it's gonna play it. so I mean it's a testament to your playing and that you could play a horn that still got leaks in it and still and still play it.
M: so there's always issues like that. People bring oh there's only one thing wrong with it, and then I'll put a light in I'll be like: well this is not one thing here's all your leaks, and they're like oh my God. Well, I didn't see that like you know same situation you were in. So, some people have a heavy hand some people don’t, and various you know from person to person but I mean there's not many people in this area that do it.
T: yeah
M: there should be like maybe less than 10 people here
T: in Richmond?
M: Probably in this whole region. I could think of like maybe 6 people in Richmond. Maybe and 2 of them are probably getting ready to retire, and we just hired somebody recently. She's 26 and she went to that 2-year program. There are a couple of places out Midwest, and she's very good. She's always focused on her job, and she's one to learn. I'm still learning like I'm constantly I'm finding things that I either never seen before or I've done this repair 100 times, and this is the first time this happened you know. There are always these unexpected moments like that. But man it's a…it's strange that it's just a dying almost like a dying breed. People that don't want to do it or I don't know. I feel like if you do a program like that like a two-year program you're coming out into a pretty good situation. There are already jobs available in this field constantly. There are always positions open, but it just seems like we never get people to come to the position because there's nobody around you know.

Keywords: instrument repair program; oral tradition of advertising

Partial Transcript: T: there's no information
M: sometimes if you go to like Music and Art website or to their Google page and hit reviews, you can read reviews and there are some people. But they don't state anybody by name they're just like I went to the repair shop and they did a great job on my blah blah or you know. But they never say Eric or Mike or Teresa or like they never specify anybody. It's just…I don't think there's much out there about me at all other than my early stuff that I did when I was playing music. That might be the only thing out there about me. I don't think anything about my repair is in the virtual world nor have I ever put it out there like I just don't. I've never publicized myself as a repair person. it's always just been word of mouth or just whatever comes to the shop you know. I never go out there and say come to me get your horn picks by me you know.
T: I think this is a good chance to you know probably put some something online
M: yeah
T: cause I saw I saw a guy on YouTube, and he's like filming videos of what he's Introducing the process of repairing and that's cool. Because it's a really mysterious thing for a lot of musicians. Although they play saxophone, clarinet. They really don't know how to fix it.
M: the mechanics of the keys, the strings and the genres coming today with his Bari Sax. it's like I've been thinking about it when he called me last night. he's like yeah it's just his keys not going down all the way. I'm like well it could be 10 reasons why that key isn't going down.mI like literally could roll off 10 reasons why. So we'll see when he gets there.
T: and another question is do you feel kind of differences before the kind of Internet period and after the Internet period?
M: yes oh yeah uh tooling like instructional stuff on tooling. You know certain tools you would buy there was they would you buy it and ship to you and if you didn't already know how to use it. There wasn't anything to show you how to use you know, you don't want to break the tool and you don't want to misuse the tool where it hurts or damages the finish or something you know. Certain rollers and stuff that you know you're supposed to use certain types of lubricants and stuff so you know you're not dragging doing any metal and metal just disrupting the finish and something like that. But internet definitely, going to the internet for like plating, lacquering like stuff that you're unfamiliar with from like I can fix key I can fix horns repaid stuff, but how do you go about as far as like taking the finish and making it, removing and putting it back on and there's a lot of videos up there that help with that. I mean yeah there's
M: There is a ton of Internet stuff out there. there's a network of like social forms now that you can go on sax form clinic forms which were never there before. It helps clear up issues with people who have “hey I'm having this thing with this on my horn, does anybody experience this?” In that opportunity to get flooded with information that could be bad and some good you know but um that stuff wasn't there before you know you had to call somebody that either knew playing it or you used somebody to fix them but yeah it's changed a lot due to every aspect.
T: yeah do you feel the business kind of change?
M: oh yeah you get a lot to do it yourselves. I mean you got a lot of those now because they go to these videos and they buy the supplies online and they do it themselves. But then they end up not getting something right or it's not and then they end up coming in and “I did this but can you make it better and fix it” I'm like well I have to take it all apart and take everything you did and take it out and then restart. So there's a lot I do get that from time to time where people will research it, do it themselves, and then they're still stuck with their Horns.
T: I actually I also wanted to try to fix things by myself but I kind of give up because there are so many tools and I think it's better for a professional person.
M: for you, I mean for that repair you could have taken that spatula the G sharp had the big with the big port you know the spatula right there. You probably could have taken it and just bent it outward, and that would have cleared the keys not rubbing and you probably would've played through the horn like you normally do, but you know we found some other issues
T: yeah
M: kind of some of the small issues that we took care but you probably could do it without any tools just taking your thumb and just kind of bend that spatula out. Now if you would have gone too far it would have either snapped or but those keys don't snap I mean. They're good instruments they're high quality you know. so if it wasn't you gotta be really careful how hard you push because sometimes you'll bend it out or you'll just snap it off because of some of these numerous products you know. These mass-produced forms, the metal content is so soft and it's just weak and you know sometimes after playing a flute or something you know like there's certain brands about the name but if you play on, they were actually the weak the metal just continues to start softer and softer so they come out of adjustment super easy and it's all because of just the soft metal you know just playing the horn is enough to make it come out of adjustment. um but the internet has definitely changed things good and bad. I mean like I said you get these do-it-yourself people um… and then you get people who are coming in like just the knowledge of knowing what they have sometimes you know. Back in the day you would have to guess like oh you know there are some charts, there are some serial number charts on instruments or even like navigating the models over the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and stuff like that, and that information was kind of just in books or call on people who know that stuff. Now it's just like you can go to these websites and this is the serial number
T: yeah
M: You do all these searches and then it just gives you everything you need to know about you know how they were made when they were made and you know what material is used and Yeah so that it definitely helps for sure. There are a lot of online classes now you can do like these JL Smith Music Medic, they offer these webinar things you know so you can buy products from them, and then every week or a couple of times a week, they'll put out these videos of their tools and how they use them and the purpose behind and then they also do these kinds of for the do-it-yourself people you know. They put out these videos of you know how to unstick a pad how to you know how to pull a rod and clean it and put it in an oil and there's definitely some knowledgeable video stuff that's good and you know. But I don't personally use them I've referred some people to JL Smith Music Medic because they do offer these. I get emails all the time about these web and arts that are always put down and they're free I mean if you just want to watch them and then buy the products.

Keywords: JL Smith Music; mysterious; online instructional stuff on tooling

Partial Transcript: T: yes last question, how do you feel the covid change
M: yeah I was out of work for 4 months that we closed the store. The Covid came in and we found everything hit you know. School it was about April I guess school was they promised to stop school. So all those instruments just sat there in the schools. We never got them because we were closed until almost August. I've said you know so we were close for 3 for almost 4 months and then it was just like we're fixing what we had like what was already in like in our kind of in our own shelves and stuff that just sat there. So we finally got to that stuff and then school came around and then school never really started it was a whole another year of like sporadic just nothing to repair occasional things to repair. It was never like influx because when summertimes before Covid, we would do 6-800 repairs from May to September or June to September you know. We would do about that many and then it just went to nothing like we had nothing to repair that summer of Covid. Next summer comes around, number started to pick up again, but nothing like it is this year. Going into this school year was like it was before covid. We were back our numbers are right back where they were. Now as far as a repair person, we had to take extra precautions at cleaning the instruments
T: oh yeah
M: brass instruments, not a problem, never a problem. We always strip them down. You clean them you put them back together right? Flutes, clarinets all the Woodwind stuff, that's when you're going okay how do we do this that still make it… you know if you gotta take a horn apart and clean it, you got to if it's filthy. But we started using ethyl alcohol. We had used it before covid but not as intense during covid, and I still use it to this day.I was using itwhat we were doing here for repair. I usually clean every horn to this day ever since covid I just I'm still gonna do it, but that was a big thing so we were swabbing out instruments before we even repaired them. We got instruments in… We had a policy where your instrument was going to sit on the shelf for 5 days before we even opened it, to either fix it or to give you an estimate to fix it. So some people would bring into horn and they could just do it whatever They'll pick a level and say yeah just fix it. Some people are like I need an estimate before you do anything. So that just gave them a longer time period time to wait for that, but we always had a 5 day it will come in it stuck in the back of the store. We have a room set aside that's where we just put them. They were tagged, labeled you know everything was ready to go. But we had a 5-day policy on looking or touching horns you know, opening the cases whatever, you know because we don't know… we didn't know... nobody did you know and then they come to find out oh only stays on surfaces for X amount of time. We still took precautions. I think we might have backed it down to 3 days or something, but we still had a waiting period. so covid definitely added more days to a repair, and added a longer time frame being in the shop because it was that time frame when we just didn't do anything to it, and then you add in then you put it on the shelf in line with everything else. so now you're still building this like you know it'll be 2 weeks you know, but that's what it was and turn on time has gotten a lot better now just because we're out of it and but the influx is that's key man. It's been super busy this year compared to the year before.
T: because all the repairman can work remotely
M:yeah so yeah so I did work remotely a little bit. We'll just do to every I was… I mean before Covid, I was already working from home because of my situation--care my wife. So going into Covid, it was nothing different to me because I was already home and I never left my house.I was like oh this is okay. I'll just you know, stay home for a few months, not work but towards the end of that. I started doing some refurb that we have. the company rents instruments, so we have to do refurbs on them to put them back out to be rented and instead of just letting that pile just grow grow grow you know because it was… we didn't… well the store stopped they closed so the whatever was there was just this massive pile of refurb that wasn't getting touched. So after like 2 and 1/2 3 months going into that 4th month, I actually started doing those from home um because I felt safe. They had sat there long enough, they weren't gonna bring anything in the house
T: yeah
M: and I was I'm well and healthy. I was taking my mask, my glove that's another thing. I wore gloves every time I fixed a horn. I always had gloves on always had a mask on um and then we always used isopropyl on the inside of the horn the outside of the horn, the mouthpieces. We always make sure that we sanitize the mouthpieces, check the necks, bagged whatever we could. On flutes, we bagged the lip you know the head joint. Just anything that gave the customer more comfort, and knowing that we took precautions and repairing your horn and precautions, and you know cleaning your instrument and stuff like we always put little things in there. Your instrument was cleaned sanitized disinfected you know whatever we could, and that was a going in you know when Covid hit we had to come up with a structure a companywide structure of how to… how a repair person will take a repair at how they will take it on and these steps that you will do. Now as far as disinfecting the only thing we could use was ethyl alcohol to disinfect it. I mean I don't think don and detergent so you know all that certain… I mean it probably clean it but it's not gonna disinfect it. So we… we just try to find things that worked on all metals, all finishes and it was ethyl alcohol, and then we just outfitted every shot with boxes of nice approval and we're almost out of it. Maybe we'll see, there's always another strand of something but…

Keywords: assembly line; complex hand craft; lockdown; pandemic

Partial Transcript: T: Just come up with another question. so how does Richmond Symphony Orchestra or like huge ensembles or orchestras in Richmond, how do they repair their instrument? Do they just send directly to you know shops like music and art or they have their own repair?
M: So in Richmond um it's… I don't think there are any shops that have been instrument repair and if they do like Sam Ash might be the only other store in Richmond that has an in-store repair shop, but I don't think they do anymore honestly don't think they have anybody there. So they probably send their stuff to other Sam Ash stores that have repair people. Before they got their repair person, they sent them to us, well they sent them to Harrison Music. They would never send them to Music and Arts because they're such a competitive. But they used to send their repairs to Harrison Music where I worked before they sold to Music and Arts. We did so yeah it's like Jacob's music when they were in business, they sent their repairs to us how some music sends their repairs to us. But these are like people like in Blackstone, Urbana Palmara like kind of outskirts of Richmond.
T: yeah
M: Williamsburg also sends their repairs to us, um…I think the furthest we go is Charlottesville. They send the repairs to us. Um… We do the schools out in Charlottesville. You know a lot of, mostly our account is mostly made up of schools, and then it goes to customer-based stuff, and then the stores that bring us. So we do all the music instrument repairs. That's 3 stores in Richmond that's one in Fredericksburg, and one in Charlottesville. You have some music Mechanicsville Music. There's probably one or 2 oh Powhatan music hammer music. Yeah there's just… yeah so they all kind of setting in and nobody has an in-store repair facility, and then you're lucky if there are one or 2 people that work from home. Like I can't think of any that are either they're probably retired or if there are, I just don't know. But yeah, it's it is it's almost like a monopoly. I think it's almost like… it's all comes down to this shop in Richmond. Although there are a lot of technicians, it turns out it doesn't… it's not that many. I mean there's a technician out there's like 2 maybe out in Charlottesville. But for some reason, they're not associated with Music and Arts which that's probably that's their decision. I mentioned like they don't want to either work for a corporation and they want to do their own thing. I mean I've been… I've been wanting to do that but at the same time. I mean there are a lot of perks for working with company you know, for example, health insurance. I mean there's a lot of perks. If you were to do it on your own, you may struggle at first until you were able to accommodate yourself with health insurance and stuff like that you know. I don't think anybody can just jump right in and then open a business and just start paying themselves. Yeah, that ain't gonna happen. So you better have some money in your savings to do that because you're not gonna pay yourself for a while Imagine if well… unless you work from home I mean. People do have home shops and they do exist but you know you gotta have the right tools and you gotta have to spend the money on that stuff. I mean it's yeah, you know ultrasonic tanks are a must um… and they're very expensive and it's a must. You'll make the money back over time of course because of what it does and the charging for a cleaning and what the machine can do. But you have to pick, I mean you gotta put that it's a lot of money up front to start a business like that. Um… So yeah I'm comfortable with working for a corporation. Some people might not be. But I definitely feel like I'm in a good spot where you know where we're at. We have a good repair shop. We had a good group of people and a good repair tech. We all ask questions. We all feed off each other. Nobody's ever got an ego. Everybody helps each other you know. Regardless of whether you doing it for 6 years or 20,30 years you know. Everybody's got something to show and everybody's got something noodle on there, and I've always welcomed these younger people because they always show me something I don't know. Because I'm very old school, I've learned... I Learned from apprenticed with a person who did it for 45, 50 years. So I just kind of that was my teacher. While they go to school for 2 years and they have you know hands all this stuff with new tools and… so when they come in and said hey have you tried it this way or have you seen this tool or… It's just it's nice to be able to you know kinda keep up… you gotta keep up to date, like any mechanic or anything, you gotta keep up to date with the new products the tooling and stuff. But in our world like mechanics, they go to classes they actually have to learn these new things you know for these new cars and stuff coming out. Where for us there's really nothing out there that is certified like you have to learn this. There's nothing like that which they should be. They should do it. well man I hope, I hope I got you a few more answers to something
T: yeah yeah thank you so much
M: yeah thank you thank you so much

Keywords: Monopoly; competition; instrument repair business in Richmond; school band instrument repair