The open source saxophone project (2017) (opens in new tab)

Check out his philosophy on the site.

I especially liked his calculation on how many intstruments he can repair during his lifetime. His conclusion isn't existential panic, or a plan to 'scale', but seemingly, that he needs to make them count.

I can see why he has a waiting list.

A friend of mine did woodwind instrument repairing at college, and the final project was to build a saxophone from scratch. It proved that you could work with every part of the instrument, but she said if you did it for real you'd make much better money flipping burgers.

While the website is offline, there is probably some interesting content on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@StohrerMusic

This took forever to find, I came across this many years ago when I was still playing and I found it fascinating because you spend quite a bit of time as a beginner memorizing the pretty bizarre key sequences required to produce the notes on the chromatic scale. Apparently I wasn't the only person with that gripe, someone designed a sax with a linear key pattern:

https://jsengineering.net/saxes-with-linear-fingering-system...

As a saxophone player myself, I highly recommend Matt Stohrer's work. It is full of useful information about the instrument and maintaining it. They are finicky instruments that need a lot of attention. I'd go to him all the time, but he's way down in North Carolina and I hate sending my saxes off with carrier services. I'm lucky that my local repairs are done by Jack Tyler at Boston Sax Shop.

Cool, I have a Selmer 5 digit Mark VI tenor that needs a tune-up. I'm afraid to give it to anyone as it's kind of a collectors item. I'll contact this guy to see what to do or maybe use the instructions to do my own work.

I play a stringed instrument. Good repairers are a dying breed, and worth their weight in gold. These instruments are meant to be played, and get taken out and knocked around. Repairs often involve specialized skills that a musician can't tackle ourselves.

hug of death :-(