Keeping the Music Sweet

Business as usual at the Los Angeles Unified School District’s musical instrument repair shop means patching up cracked violins and straightening out twisted trombones that have been used in a student sword fight.

Now, amid a drive to make music as basic as math and science, the world’s largest instrument repair shop is busier than ever spiffing up its damaged music makers and engraving 3,750 brand new ones with the letters “LAUSD ORCHESTRA.”

Under a corrugated metal roof in a grimy warehouse district west of downtown, two dozen craftsmen have been hammering the dents out of saxophones, yanking paper clips out of trumpet pistons and mending the battered bodies of basses gouged with the initials of generations of high school sweethearts.

“Basses lead a very hard life,” said veteran repairman Edwin Barker, after reconstructing the face of a 50-year-old stand-up bass. “They are leaned edgewise against things, then tip over. Necks get broken and bodies get knocked to pieces. I bring them back to life.”

L.A. Unified is in the second year of a 10-year plan for reviving arts education after years of funding cuts. As the program evolves, arts instruction will be expanded first in the elementary schools.

The Board of Education last year approved a $4.6-million increase in arts funding. A fourth of that money was recently used to purchase thousands of new instruments. The funds are also being used to send arts specialists into elementary schools.

“We had 63 music teachers five years ago. Now, we have 135 music teachers, and we’re looking high and low for new ones,” said Don Doyle, acting director of the district’s performing and visual arts unit.

Randy Comeau, a senior repairman, has been eager to help.

“With 50 elementary schools and 15 high schools restarting music programs this year, we’re amplifying our operations,” he said. “But with an average five students a day playing each instrument in stock, we’re more interested in function than aesthetics. Our rule is this: if the cost of repair exceeds 50% of the value of the instrument, it gets tossed into the bone yard”--earmarked for public auction.

In most cases, though, the district’s master repairmen can lengthen the lives of instruments past the half-century mark.

“Most of what we do is body and fender type work,” said supervisor Steve Riccobono. “This summer, we also expect to clean, disassemble and sterilize as many as 20,000 instruments.” The district requires periodic sterilization of brass and woodwind instruments used in elementary schools.

For big brass, the process begins in the so-called “acid room,” where student worker Hector Preciado dips them in tanks of cleanser and weak hydrochloric acid, then shines them up with a motorized brush.

After that, instruments such as tubas are delivered to John Pedersen, specialist in “body work on brass.”

Rolling the dents out of a tuba’s bell with a special machine, he said, “Even tubas are delicate instruments. This one here was repeatedly dropped and battered. It needs a day and a half of work. When I’m done it’ll look like new.”

Michael Dubkin’s specialty is finding the air leaks in saxophones and other woodwinds. Inserting a long fluorescent light into a saxophone, he said, “Any light filtering out of a felt pad means it won’t play at all.”

New pads are fastened to the instrument with shellac melted with a Bunsen burner. “This is definitely Old World labor,” he said. “There’s nothing high-tech about it.”

However, experts in this field are so hard to find that the district has been unable to fill two openings for brass and percussion repair workers at about $50,000 a year.

Broken stringed instruments are operated on over work benches strewn with carving tools, hammers, locking pliers and bottles of adhesives and solvents.

“When it comes to damaged violins, nothing is simple,” said repairman David Magliari. “One came in filled up with eight ounces of hardened white glue. I disassembled, scraped, steamed and blasted. When I was done, there was still enough violin left to play.

“It’s when mom and dad try to fix a broken instrument that we run into really serious problems. “In those cases, we wind up with finger boards stuck back on with rubber cement that didn’t hold, or a neck reattached with Super Glue at a wrong angle.”

Vandalism, less prevalent than it was a decade ago, is taken seriously.

At the elementary school level, each student signs a contract. If an instrument is damaged or lost, the student may be asked to pay for the repair or replacement.

Inside Riccobono’s shop, each busted flute, mariachi guitar and drum represents a welcome challenge.

“The most important things taught in this district are reading and math, which is as it should be,” Riccobono said. “But I’m pleased by the extra support we’re getting for the visual and performing arts. Honestly, it’s music to my ears.”