During a break in band class at Loveland's Saint John the Evangelist Catholic School, 13-year-old Rachel Lambrecht twirls her flute like a baton and then, much to the amusement of her friends, she wields it like a lightsaber from Star Wars.
Though she tries to be careful, she admits her flute has taken its fair share of abuse. "Well, sometimes when I put it on my lap it just falls," she said. "It's never been damaged but I do drop it a lot."
Which means it's possible that someday it might land in Jana Thomas's Fort Collins repair shop. It's one of only a half-dozen in Northern Colorado that specialize in instrument repair.
"I think there will always be musicians, who will always need their instruments fixed," Thomas said. "You can't purchase a repair on the Internet."
For the past 35 years, Thomas has been putting clarinets, oboes, saxophones and tubas back together at her music instrument repair shop, aptly named The Repair Shop. With a focus on brass and woodwind instruments, much of the work involves cleaning instruments, replacing worn out key pads, soldering broken parts back together – and removing dents.
http://youtu.be/DFyZI6hSiB0
"Marching band gives us quite a bit of work," Thomas said. "I mean, kids fall and they land on their instrument. Instruments collide... And yeah, instruments fall and get dropped. I'd like to say most of it is accidental – every now and then it seems like it's intentional."
Like a 13-year-old flutist trying to start a Jedi duel?
Something like musical instrument fencing doesn't even begin to cover the field of accidents St. John's band teacher, Andrew Vogt, has seen.
"One funny time… a kid got his trumpet caught in a folding chair and it got all bent up in the chair and you couldn't even open the folding chair," Vogt recalled, laughing. "And he tried to blow the trumpet while it was still in the chair. It was pretty funny."
It's a tale Vogt can relate to.
"In seventh grade I broke three mouth pieces and I remember I got a new one and then I dropped it, like that day, and it broke," he said. "You know, so yeah, I was horrible."
But as long as there are still students in band class, Thomas will have customers.
"It's a great business," she said. "I can't believe that after 35 years I still enjoy it. You know, I don't know that many people that can say that."
