Getting Broken Saxophones Repaired

(Even though we have moved on to Guanajuato, we still have a few blogs from our life in Tlaquepaque to post. Enjoy!)

We have two saxophones here in Mexico. Because I routinely
play an alto, I keep it on a stand. Unfortunately, one night the nocturnal cat
activities got a little too rambunctious and they knocked my sax onto the hard
tile floor. My sax had some damage and needed to go into the repair shop.

Lex plays the bari sax, and one day one of her keys no
longer functioned properly. It needed to go into the shop, too.

Back in Colorado, we knew of several good shops. In
Guadalajara, we didn’t know of any. Mr. Google provided several potential
musical instrument repair shops. Then we had to use WhatsApp, in Spanish, to
find out whether they repaired saxophones. Fortunately, Mr. Google provided a
picture of the front of one shop, Taller (Workshop) Rodriguez e Hijos, which had
a sign which said they repaired saxophones. They became the de facto winner.

The sign says: Repair of All Types of Woodwind instruments, including Clarinets, Trumpets, trombones and Saxophones, Gold-Plated, Nickel, Chrome

Visiting Rodriguez e Hijos

Lex and I Ubered to the shop on a Monday afternoon. No
Spanish spoken there, but we managed to convey what we needed. The sax expert
came out and gave our saxophones a thorough examination. Then, in very rapid
Spanish, he explained to us what he needed to do. Neither Lex or I understood a
word he said, we just nodded in agreement. He did point out four areas that my
sax needed work on. When we asked him when they would be ready, he told us three
days.

I also asked how much he thought it would cost and he told
us that he wouldn’t know until he did his work. I left with a little concern,
since we gave both saxophones to someone we didn’t know and with no idea what
it would cost us to get them back.

Bob’s happy saxophone

Lexie’s rejuvenated bari sax

Lex and I returned on Thursday, and as promised the
saxophones were ready. I took mine out and played a few notes. It sounded good.

Then Came the Bill

I then asked the question I was almost afraid to ask – how
much was the bill? To my astonishment, the bill was $450MXN, or less than
$25USD. I gave him the money and we were off.

I don’t know exactly what was done, but I can guarantee you
that the work would have cost us at least $150 USD back in Lakewood, and
certainly wouldn’t have been done in 3 days.

But both saxophones were fixed and now sound the way they
should.

Thank you Taller Rodriguez e Hijos!