INSTITUTE OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENT TECHNOLOGY


Browse Categories

Bassoon Repairs

Bassoon Repairs

The bassoon is the lowest and largest of the woodwinds. The bassoon sound has a large variety, depending on if low, medium or high notes are played.
Clarinet Repairs

Clarinet Repairs

Invented around 1690, the clarinet is a single-reed woodwind instrument with a cylindrical tube. The history of the clarinet continued to develop as two-keyed clarinets underwent a variety of improvements By about 1750, the clarinet body had taken the basic shape we see today
Flute Repairs

Flute Repairs

The flute is a family of musical instrument of the woodwind group. The oldest flutes found, are reportedly thousands of years old and made of bones. These flutes were used during hunting and in rituals. Until the middle ages flutes were manly played by hunters, shepherds Charles Nicholson (1795-1837) introduced larger holes for the fingers and a larger hole for the mouth piece in order to get a better sound.
French Horn Repairs

French Horn Repairs

The French horn is a member of the Brass family they are constructed of brass it is played by blowing air through closed lips to produce a buzzing sound; this produces a standing wave which is amplified through the instrument
The horn is roughly 3.7meters in length and normally tuned to F
Other members of this family are the trumpet, cornet, trombone and tuba
Guitar Repairs Acoustic

Guitar Repairs Acoustic

The modern acoustic guitars we play today fall into two styles, acoustic generally with a larger body and narrower neck having a mix of steel and bronze strings, giving a bright dynamic tone and often used to play rock pop blues and jazz styles, and the classical guitar having a smaller body size together with a wider fingerboard and fitted with nylon strings giving a more mellow sound, likely to be used for classical and Spanish guitar styles.
Guitar Repairs Electric

Guitar Repairs Electric

Although other designs were produced in the 1930s though not generally available, it was Rickenbacker USA in 1933 that first produced a viable electric guitar, made of aluminium and nicknamed “The Frying Pan”. The idea was further developed by one Les Paul in the early 40s using a 4x4 post attached to a guitar neck with home made pickups.
Harpsichord Makers

Harpsichord Makers

The harpsichord is a keyboard instrument which unlike the piano has strings that are plucked by a plectra within a jack rather than struck by a hammer (felt covered).
Oboe Repairs

Oboe Repairs

The oboe is a family of double reed woodwind instruments. It is made from a wooden tube roughly 65 cm long, with metal keys, a conical bore and flared bell at the end. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed and vibrating a column of air.
Organ Builder

Organ Builder

The average church organ has two keyboards called manuals comprising 56, 58 or 61 notes, and a pedal board of 30 notes. Each manual will have about 6 to 8 stops and the pedals 1 or 2. The largest organ had 7 manuals the lowest 2 of 7 octave compass and the remainder 5 octaves the pedals had 32 notes.
Organ Tuner Repair

Organ Tuner Repair

The organ covers the greatest frequency range of any instrument. On the largest from 9Hz to 5000Hz and an instrument this size would comprise many thousands of pipes ranging in speaking length from 64 feet to 1/4 inch. The average church organ covers 32Hz to 4200Hz, 16feet to 3/8 inch and comprises several hundred pipes.
Piano Tuner

Piano Tuner

Each of the 220 strings in most Pianos needs to be under about 160 Lbs of tension in order to achieve the correct pitch, this puts an overall strain of more than 20 tons on the metal frame. When a Piano is tuned, the frequency of every note has a precise mathematical ratio to every other note on the keyboard.
Saxophone Repairs

Saxophone Repairs

Saxophone repairs can be minor such as regulating the action and cleaning to more major work, replacing the corks, felts and pads, recorking the crook, resoldering, finding and rectifying leaks and the removal of dents or realigning the bell after an accident.
Trombone Repair

Trombone Repair

A member of the Brass family like all brass instruments the sound is produced by the player’s vibrating lips creating a vibrating column of air. The trombone has a telescopic slide which is lengthened and shortened to change the pitch it works on the same principle as the trumpet in fact valve trombones are available. The trombones is pitched 1 octave below the trumpet and one octave above the tuba, in an orchestra it would not necessarily by a transposing instrument but a brass band would require the instrument to be pitched in B flat
Trumpet Repairs

Trumpet Repairs

The Trumpet is a member of the Brass Family and is one of the oldest recorded instruments, they are constructed of brass it is played by blowing air through closed lips to produce a buzzing sound, this produces a standing wave which is amplified through the instrument and in the modern trumpet altered by use of valves which change the length of the tubing most trumpets are transposing instruments most commonly in B flat the tubing is approximately 134cm in total.
Other members of this family include the trombone, the cornet and the French horn.
Tuba Repairs

Tuba Repairs

Is a member of the brass family and the bass instrument, smaller tubas are called euphoniums and also baritones are used in Brass bands