The Manufacturing, Sale, and Use of Our Musical Instruments

The soft strum of a guitar. The sweet whistle of a flute. The low singing of a cello. Hundreds of unique sounds like these are all around us, but we rarely stop to think about the instruments behind them.

Many people have played an instrument at one point or another, whether playing French horn in a middle school band, a viola in a high school orchestra, or an electric bass in a garage band with their friends. People want to be a part of the music they listen to. Countless people all over the world dedicate their lives to selling, manufacturing, and entertaining musical instruments, making them ready for musicians to use to enrich people’s lives.

Clint Strait is the third generation owner and president of Strait Music, a local music shop that sells various instruments, their acessories, and offers repairs. He says instrument popularity aligns closely with popular music.

“I mean, everybody wants to be a guitar player right? A lot of people don’t play clarinet in their 30s or play trumpet in their 40s” Strait said. “A lot of people just migrate to guitar mainly because it’s the main instrument of all the music that we listen to.”

Strait Music sells and rents instruments to many student musicians all over Austin. Many students rely on rentals like these for participation in their middle and high school bands and orchestras.

“We have thousands of band and orchestra rentals to local middle schoolers, locals, and kids in the greater Austin area,” Strait said.

While the products and services rendered by Strait Music are vital for beginners, they are also helpful for musicians of all ages.

“We do have a lot of professional musicians,” Strait said. “A lot of times those are people that utilize our really experienced repair technicians.”

Strait Music has also been a favorite for professional musicians due to its reputable repair services. Most instruments require specific and fine-detail repairs that musicians cannot perform themselves.

Repairs are a crucial part of maintaining the instruments we use. Mary Machuga is the Business Operations Manager for the Ohio State University Marching Band, a top college marching band in the country. With a band that size, there are a lot of instruments to keep track of and maintain. She says that they have a system for conducting these repairs.

“At any time we can have close to 600 instruments checked out in the fall,” Machuga said. “We contract with an instrument company in Columbus from which we have a couple of people on-site to do our instrument repair and work with us for our inventory.”

Jacob Glorioso is a student staff member finishing his fifth year in the Ohio State Marching Band. He says that most repairs that the university needs can be performed on-site and instruments only are shipped off to a different location when the instrument is severely damaged.

“We can do anything from bent ends to stuck slides, tough stuck valves, stuck mouthpieces, and most fabrication,” Glorioso said.

“It’s when we have things like someone broke their lead pipe and the horn is dented. That’s when it gets shipped out.”

As a marching band, the maintenance and uniformity of the instruments is one of the most important aspects of a professionallooking and sounding band. For this reason, Machuga says that there are limitations in place for when and how students can use their personal instruments.

“We don’t let them use their own instrument for practice or games, just because we want the uniform look,” Machuga said. “We want all the finishes to be the same.”

The students use instruments almost constantly, and while repairs are not very often needed, the instruments get dirty. Machuga says that for the most part, students are responsible for dealing with this for the sake of the instrument.

“Each student, whether or not they do it, should be cleaning their instrument and maintaining it,” Machuga said. “That helps with the longevity of the instrument.”

Sometimes new instruments are required, and while every instrument has to be made, not all are created the same. Many are mass-produced in factories, but some are made to be unique and serve specialized purposes. Doug Mains is the founder and owner of Austin Winds, a trumpet shop that sells trumpets unlike many others in the category. He says that trumpets most commonly have a bright sound, and when he wanted a darker sound, he had to design his own, and from there, a business was started. manufacturing,” said Mains. “It’s difficult to do it here in the States.”

In fact, small music businesses can be unreliable enough that some owners can’t rely fully on them for income.

Mains says that Austin Winds is a passion project and that with other sources of income, his stress is a lot lower.

“I’ve got a little computer company in Austin. That’s my main living so I can weather and the music they produce are very meaningful to those who have learned to appreciate them. Musical instruments have offered countless entertainment hours and allowed us to create something utterly human. For those looking to buy a new instrument, Strait says that it is important to go to places that are experienced and trustworthy.

Guitars are a very common instrument among musicians and in popular music.

“I started designing horns for a more solid, darker sound. That’s what got me into it,” Mains said. “And then, after I had the design that I liked, friends started playing it. They liked it, and they wanted one. So Austin Winds was born.”

However, challenges are common when it comes to manufacturing musical instruments. Many businesses have to rely on outside manufacturers to make the instruments they want to sell. Mains says that the US manufacturers he was using to make his designs closed down and that he has had to adapt.

“That’s just the nature of the beast with instrument the storm with Austin Winds because I don’t have to rely on it,” Mains said. “It’s more of a passion and an extra source of income.”

For many musicians, their instruments are extensions of their bodies that allow them to express their emotions and entertain others in the form of music. Instruments can be expensive or cheap, old or new, broken or fixed, but regardless of their condition, instruments

“Go support your local businesses and talk to someone that knows what they’re talking about,” Strait said. “If you go somewhere and are not treated well, go somewhere else, because you don’t want to go somewhere and be not treated well and have a bad taste in your mouth about music because you went to a bad store. Go find a spot where you walk in and feel welcome.”

By Ben Stewart

For centuries, if you wanted to listen to music, you had to buy a ticket to a concert or opera, but with the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison, music was brought to the masses. Suddenly you could listen to Beethoven in your living room and later, the Beatles while walking your dog. Here is a timeline of the greatest inventions in musical reproduction.