Instrument Maintenance and Repair Overseas

GhostWriter is working in the show band on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean.  A few weeks ago he had some trouble with his bass and writes us today with some tips on musical instrument maintenance and repair.  This is great information! ~ Dave

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First of all, it’s been a while.  It’s hard finding spare time on this ship.  I talked to HR last week, and they said they would fix it.  It seems to be common knowledge all around that musicians should have at least one day a cruise off.

So, a few cruises ago, I was doing the farewell show. Right at the end of one tune with the first act, the tension on my G string (of course it had to be THAT one) let up. Naturally, I thought my string broke. The next tune, I had to play on three strings rather than four. I’ve heard stories of great players having to do this before, so I wasn’t worried.

The tune finished fine. At the end of that tune, B., one of the stage crew, ran to my cabin for me and grabbed my baggie of spare strings I brought with me. I brought two basses, and I don’t know why I didn’t just ask him to bring me my Fender. While thinking that, I was trying to change the string. It took about a dozen turns on the tuner to realize that it wasn’t the string at all…it was a broken tuner!

I sent A/V back for the Fender this time, while finishing this act on my broken bass. As soon as it was over, I gave a hand signal to the sound guy to mute my bass, made the change, tuned, and finished the show on my Fender. Problem averted.

I spent the whole of the last cruise on my Fender. I don’t mind, but apparently ship musicians hate the sound of a Fender Jazz Bass. Then again, I think I like playing the cheap bass better, since the more I bring it out of the cabin, the more likely something bad would happen to it. But it took a while to fix it, being in a strange place, not knowing where I can find a music shop. So here’s what I learned.

1.) Come as prepared as you can.

Because I had two instruments, I saved my rear, because I didn’t have to spend money on a new bass right away. I think I’m going to replace this axe, but now I have some time to shop around.

2.) Find a music store!

Up to this point, the only store I knew of was at the home port in Civitavecchia. It’s not a bad store, but it doesn’t have spare parts. They handed me a card for a repairman in Rome. If I did that, I would have had to wait until next embarkation day and get an early start.

I got lucky, though. In Istanbul, I heard there is a street of nothing but music stores just outside Taksim Square. One of the dancers gave me directions to Taksim. When I got there, I found one music store. After describing what I need to them through the language barrier, they told me they didn’t have parts there, but there are other music stores at the end of the street.

As I walked, I noticed all the clothing stores disappeared and the street was as I heard. Nothing but music stores as far as the eye could see! Actually, that’s not true. There was a record store of nothing but jazz, funk, and classical right in the middle of these stores, too! But the prices were about $30 for a CD. Ouch.
I went into store after store, looking for the parts. I finally found one at the Yamaha store. Turns out Yamaha uses this style of tuners. Cost me $20 for the set of four. So it was less than one CD.

3.) BRING YOUR BROKEN AXE WITH YOU!

I made the mistake of not taking my bass with me, mostly because I didn’t think I’d actually find a store with the parts I needed. My bass has an abnormal headstock; the three tuners for the lower strings are on the normal side for a regular bass, but the G string tuner is on the bottom end of the headstock. They had the choice of the typical setting: four on one side, or two tuners on either side of the headstock. Not thinking, I bought the set for four, rather than the set that’s for two on each side. Got back to the ship, and realized the tuner was backwards compared to my four new ones. Luckily, Istanbul was an overnight stay. Otherwise, I would have had to wait for three weeks to exchange it. I waited outside the store until it was opened, and exchanged the parts for the right one.

4.) Buy your own tools.

I thought I would have been able to borrow a set of crescent wrenches from maintenance. The problem with that is nobody knows where maintenance exists. When I ask, everyone tells me to go to crew welfare and they will contact them for me. I found one maintenance guy walking around, explained my situation, and he said he would deliver a set of crescent wrenches to my cabin. I waited a few days, and nobody ever showed. So in Paraeus, I went looking for a hardware store and bought a crescent that fit the hardware that came with the new tuners, and an adjustable wrench just in case the old bass had a different size nut.
Once I got back to the ship, I used my new tools and my Leatherman multi-tool (a tool I recommend all musicians have; sound technicians keep one on them at all times as well) and the bass was fixed in less than 20 minutes. But it took well over a week to secure all the right materials to actually fix the bass. But the bass is fixed, and the show can resume like before.

And, finally:

5.) Learn how to perform at least basic repair and maintenance on your instrument.

The MD, a sax player, has lots of complaints about his horn. T., the trumpet player, says his valves are sticking pretty badly, and he needs to have it looked at. That could be something I could fix here, but without a bathtub or a sink with a drain plug, that makes it hard. Either way, what I’ve learned, is out here, you’re pretty much on your on when it comes to maintenance of your instruments. Taking care of your instrument better than you ever have before helps here, too.