Day 4: Burns Building Character and the Attack of the Two-Foot Long Rod Screw!

Today I burned myself several times by touching a metal key right after I had heated it up for pad removal. It wasn't too bad--I have reflexes to thank for that--but my hand still hurts in various places.

Working on saxophones is at once intuitive and chaotic. Altos, tenors and barrys (baritone saxophones) all run on the same system. The person who developed them (a guy named Sax, of course) made them surprisingly elegant, especially when compared to the oboe and bassoon, kings of the keys. There are two main screws that act like "key highways" and hold, respectively, the top "stack" and the lower "stack;" here "stack" is the terminology to define whatever would be underneath each of the hands when the instrument is played.

Thus, the saxophone is probably the best-designed instrument out of all the ones I've worked on.

Of course, this is intentional. The saxophone is to musical instruments what spelling reform is to language. The saxophone was intended to fill in the gaps in the orchestra left between the low woodwinds and the middle brass, and while it never filled its intended orchestral purpose (largely due to opposition from established unions and "big instrument business") it has fulfilled the spot of the "best designed musical instrument." This is a doubly amazing achievement since the man who invented them (Sax) had to work with four different sizes (the three I mentioned plus soprano) and keep them all on mostly the same mechanism and screw chart.

Thus, one is able to elegantly enjoy the fact that once one learns the layout of one saxophone, they know the layout of all the saxophones.

Though the "highway screws" (technically called "Stack Screws") are ridiculously long, sometimes reaching almost two feet in length.

See here for proof.

A Barry Sax stack screw

These screws, frankly; they scare me. 

My woodwinds instructor today made the comment that "burns build character," and while I do not like being burned by hot metal when I'm not expecting it, I like the phrase enough that I will probably adopt it myself. Burns do build character in this situation by forcing you to respect the instrument and the craft. Without the proper amount of respect, you will be burned.

I like this ethos a lot. It really speaks to me on a conceptual level. 

I was thinking on the walk home today about how insanely specialized my choice of profession is. Musical instruments themselves are quite specialized. I have sort of "layers of specialization" method of analyzing jobs, and it works like this.

Layer one jobs are the ones that are necessary to run any society at all. This is farming, blacksmithing, and working in a factory that makes layer-one goods (textiles, tools, and things that are needed to perform layer one jobs.) 

Layer two jobs are things like education and lawyering. While they are not necessary to run the most basic of societies, they are necessary in some way to run a more advanced society. 

Layer three jobs are attached to layer two jobs in some way that is only possible with the amount of free capital created by specialization. These are jobs that support activities of fun or interest, such as video games, pleasure reading, or playing in a band. Thus, game developers, writers, and band teachers are able to exist only when there is a significant amount of free economic capital. 

Finally, stage four jobs are those that support stage three jobs. They are only possible when there is enough free economic capital to provide for so many stages three jobs in such concentration that specialization makes sense. Thus, people who own trading card shops, concept artists, literary editors, and, of course, band technicians like myself can only be located in certain areas and environments where there are a lot of people and thus a lot of free economic capital. 

This explains why there are only so many band technicians, editors, and concept artists out there. On the job "food chain," they are at the top. It takes a city of at least fifty thousand to even make a band repair shop viable. The same goes for the other stage four jobs. 

This is just me musing. 

Now onto the coworker tidbits that I learned today. The experienced repair tech (I will call him EX One) is an old coot who puts the word "fuck" or some derivative of it somewhere inside of every single sentence that he speaks, no matter if it's about his plastic spoon or his grandkids. And yet, he seems like a really kindly old man. Some of my other coworkers think his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids are taking advantage of his kindness. I don't know enough about his situation to tell if that is true, but from what I hear he may just be an old softie on the inside. Except this old softie bandies the word "fuck" about like it's a basic function of speech.

I don't like waking up at five every morning, but I will get used to it. Though my medication will keep me half asleep for the first two or three hours of work every day. I don't expect that to change. 

Counting down the days to the weekend!