Whew, what a year. 2012 was challenging and rewarding and I learned about as much as I have in any one-year period of my entire life.
On a personal level, in early 2012 my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world, a happy little chubster named August who has given me new focus and perspective as I experience the world anew from his point of view.
On the Stohrer Music side, (which after all is why you are reading this) changes came fast and furious and I found my way building a business that best uses my time and skills in the service of the saxophone community. If you have been a regular visitor to this site, you have seen the mouthpiece selection grow over the past year as well as two new saxophone dealerships for Keilwerth and P. Mauriat. And then in the past few weeks, you have seen both the new saxophone and mouthpiece sections of my site disappear.
I have come to the realization- perhaps an obvious one in hindsight- that specialization and focus rather than expansion is the key for me. I am good (I hope) at saxophone repair, and I love saxophone repair. I have a wait list for my signature service, the full overhaul. However, I still have very far to go in realizing my goals in my craft. Meanwhile there are other people who sell new saxophones and mouthpieces, and do it well. There are not as many people who do repairs the way I do them.
Time is limited.
I have decided therefore to concentrate on saxophone repair. I very much enjoyed being a dealer of new saxophones, and I enjoy mouthpieces very much (in fact I plan to continue learning to reface and will probably not be able to help continue collecting mouthpieces for myself) but where I can make a difference, where I can have the biggest impact is in the repair and restoration of saxophones, and the spreading of the knowledge I acquire. To that end, the vast majority of my business will now be carried out on my workbench. This means that my attention will be focused on two main areas: fixing your saxophone, and overhauling and selling vintage and used instruments. I will continue to write and record what I learn, in the hopes that the overall standard of repair can be raised by the education of the consumer.
And I will love nearly every minute of it, because this is what I want to do.
I thank you sincerely for stopping by, for taking the time to read this, and for traveling along with me as I figure out who and what I want to be in this business.
Here’s to 2013!