A full-time accountant during the week, Jérémie Martin is above all passionate about music. In his free time, he repairs wind instruments at his home in Montrodat (Lozère).
“It’s complicated to stop, it’s a bit of an illness.” Jérémie Martin admits it bluntly: his passion for music is sometimes all-consuming.
A fan of the saxophone since his early childhood, this 36-year-old resident of Montrodat (Lozère) devotes most of his free time to it, between hosting evenings, weddings and concerts with Loz’banda. But the day his saxophone malfunctioned, Jérémie found himself caught off guard: where should he take him to restore his voice?
Bringing instruments back to life
Rather than going to the nearest repairer in Rodez, the professional accountant decided to learn how to do it himself! “I wanted to bring the instruments back to life. I wanted to understand how it works, to delve into the mechanics.“
A year and a half ago, Jérémie Martin decided to use the credits in his personal training account to discover this field. For six months, he went one week a month to Saumur, in Maine-et-Loire, to train. “Each time, we saw a different family of instrumentsdescribes the Lozérien. We went home with one to repair for the next session.“
Counteract the effects of time
Like any mechanical assembly, musical instruments deteriorate over time. The pads used for capping degrade, the metal takes on a verdigris color, and sometimes even certain wooden parts crack. Not to mention possible falls.
“Normally, you have to have your instrument serviced once a yearspecifies the repairer. But this is rarely the case because no one does it nearby and the waiting times are often six months.“If the oxidation is purely cosmetic, other defects can simply render the instrument mute.”Once there is a leak, even a small one, the instrument no longer works.“
Precision work
To resolve the problem, there is no other choice than to dismantle it completely. Jérémie Martin then carries out a thorough cleaning, first with soap and water then with silverware products. Once the diagnosis has been established, it tackles possible changes of parts and adjustments. “It’s very fine. You can spend five to ten minutes on a piece so that it holds in place. You can spend hours on your instrument and think of nothing else. It soothes.”
Before embarking on repairing other musicians’ instruments, Jérémie acquired saxophones, transverse flutes and clarinets in poor condition to get his hands on. He now offers his services to musicians in distress. In particular, he repaired the clarinet of Bruno, the famous Santa Claus, which had fallen just before the holidays.
A secondary activity
Jérémie Martin, however, does not have a workshop to speak of. He fixes everything at home.”on an end of the table“, in the evening or on weekends. He never intended to make it a main activity. Also, he decided to give up repairing brass instruments, which would require too much investment. important. “It remains a secondary job. I don’t think we can make a living from it in Lozère, but it allows me to be independent on my repairs and to help out a few musicians.”
