From repair tech Brian Stephenson:
..."Earlier today I responded to a post about American instrument Manufacturing, the affect of tariffs and how it might impact band programs in the US. Here is my response, as requested, as it's own standalone post. I've edited and expanded on some things and did some fact-checking on my own claims to be as accurate as possible. I hope a perspective from my world can be insightful and useful to some of you. Thank you for reading my ramblings
Hi. Band Parent, Instrument Repair Tech, and Owner of a Family Local Band Music Store. I feel like I can give an angle and perspective that answers a lot of questions about the current state of musical instrument making in the US and can give an idea of direct impact with a fairly expert voice.
-I'd buy and sell American Made instruments if I could. The fact is that there are less than a dozen actual instrument factories making brass and woodwind instruments in the US any more. Of these, there are maybe one or two that are making any kind of student or beginner line of instruments. The majority of US made instruments are small custom shops.
Notable Makers include: Conn-Selmer, Getzen, Shires, Schilke, BAC, Powell, Haynes, Fox, and Burkart.
-So why don't I buy from them? A couple of reasons. Firstly, in our business there are a lot of brands that are location protected by companies that have been there forever or by large Hedge-Fund owned music stores. I, for example, can't Sell any Conn-Selmer instruments, I've tried. I'm too close to another person selling them, and they are not taking new dealers. Even if they were taking a new dealer, they aren't interested in working with smaller stores like mine. The initial buy-in is enormous.
-Also, those brands can't provide the amount needed even if we wanted to only sell them. Many of the American Companies lost a lot of personnel during COVID and never were able to get them back, seeing entire student lines of instruments discontinued because of lack of skilled labor. The Getzen company in Wisconsin made one of the best student lines of trumpets and trombones in history and ceased manufacturing a couple years ago. The companies that are still making stuff don't have the infrastructure to support their products to repair shops aftermarket either. I have parts that are over 2 years back ordered for some school horns.
-It's not coming back. We can't magically turn on the spigot of Musical instrument manufacturing. The guys that know how to do stuff like spin bells, and draw tubing and do silver plating are retired and long gone. The tooling and Machines don't exist here anymore, and the Chemicals needed for a lot of production are not allowed to be used in the states (not making an environmental comment, just facts about usage allowance) Some notable people are attempting to revive these manufacturing processes and are very skilled but cannot produce to scale. Check out O'Malley Brass in the Chicago area. Full Disclosure, he's a good friend of mine. He's making parts that the manufacturers cannot anymore and even sells to the factories.
-There is literally not a saxophone that is made in the US anymore. With the exception of some extremely small boutique companies making about a dozen a year, so that's not even an option
-Student level instruments aren't worth it to make in the US when there are so many Cheap alternatives out there. I charge $125 to clean and service brass instruments, and there are many trumpets that sell for $119 shipped on many different platforms. We can talk about quality and service all we want, but literally every day I have people telling me the quality made (Taiwan) Instruments are way too expensive even. If that same horn was made in the US (with or without current tariffs) it'd be even more expensive.
-There are REALLY good quality instruments that are made overseas. Japan, Taiwan, England, France, Germany, Switzerland all make outstanding horns. If we fall back to Student level, all of them are made in China, Indonesia, The Phillipines or to a lesser extent India. Even major name brands you recognize and that are American Companies have their student lines made in China.
-These tariffs do nothing to bring back US manufacturing or the production of the raw goods in this industry, because even if we were forging the brass, we'd still then send it overseas to be made into instruments. All they are doing is making the prices higher on the decent stuff to families and schools, and make it harder for Local businesses to sell the good quality imports, because that $100 internet special clarinet will only go up by like $10. You can see how that would increase by a lot for more expensive instruments.
- Luckily, My business isn't solely dependent on sales. We are primarily a repair shop, and we can keep the school instruments going for a long time, but even that has a shelf life. The aforementioned companies that went out of business decades ago were great, but now we can't get parts for any of that, and fabricating replacements (which we do have the capability to do) is prohibitively expensive. Someone mentioned getting into repair. YES! we need more people and there aren't enough. It's a good living and there's a lot of work, but we can't rely on 100 year old horns to provide forever. The average age of instruments in Schools right now is about 45+ years old. Name one other thing in any school that is still usable after 45 years. Repair can stem the tide but there comes a point where new stuff is needed.
*See Red Wing in Minnesota, Renton in Washington State, and Western Iowa tech for their instrument repair programs. I know the directors of all of them and they have a near 100% job placement upon completion while spending less than $30K and less than 2 years before being complete.
-So what am I saying? There are a lot of issues that have nothing to do with the tariffs. The American business attitude towards cheaper products for the last 50 years based on cheap overseas labor in part got us here. None of these issues are addressed by imposing more tariffs. Tariffs fundamentally are there to encourage people to invest domestically in either product purchase or to grow the industry.
-The student musical instrument sector is not big enough like technology products or automobiles to make it more economical to bring factories back to here. All people are looking for is the cheapest thing they can find. I don't mean to be negative about this, and especially with groceries and gas and other things so expensive, I can't blame you. I've got teachers that I work with that will literally buy Cheap import French horns and baritones and throw them away when they get broken or need a cleaning, because they can buy new ones cheaper than I can do even basic maintenance on while paying my technicians a decent wage.
+++On a personal note, the garbage instruments that come through my door break my heart. I got into repairing because I saw kids quit band thinking they were awful, and in a large majority of instances, it had nothing to do with the student or their talent. If a student is given a bad instrument to start on (Either terribly made or old and not maintained correctly) they never have a chance to fall in love with making music. Band doesn't have to be for everyone. There's lots of fun things to spend our time doing, but just like if you gave a kid a flat basketball to learn with; they'll never enjoy playing if they are fighting their tools all the time. A parent, teacher, or anyone else that knowingly gives a kid a subpar or broken instrument is directly responsible if that kid stops playing (sorry, but I'll die on that hill)
-All of these tariffs and are bad for the schools because there's always an administrator that is looking to cut band and music programs. The higher prices just give them more fuel for their argument that it's not worth the cost to the taxpayers. We're in an environment (sorry this is political opinion) where Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, band directors, librarians, and scientists are now considered to be radical and the enemy, so it's easy in a lot of communities to justify eliminating these programs in the name of Saving money. Also, The band room tends to be a safe place for many of the groups that are currently under attack (LGBTQ, Trans, Autistic, etc...) It makes it an even more attractive target to eliminate for some area school boards as well. We've seen recently an increase in officials cancelling concerts because of programming or eliminating arts opportunities because of supposed indoctrination.
I recently got notice from a friend in Asheville, SC that has a shop there finding out that All orchestra has been eliminated for this school year, and another tech friend in Las Vegas where the band program has been stripped down to almost nothing.
It's a never ending battle in our industry. Regardless of the administration these tariffs and the previous ones make it REALLY hard for anyone but the Wal-Marts, Music and Arts, and Sweetwaters of the world to be relevant when to comes to sales. I literally have products that I don't sell because online outfits can sell them for $1 more than I buy them for, with free shipping. With School bids, the big companies get bulk discounts so they can offer things at LESS than my cost as a dealer. I would have to lose money in order to sell to some schools. It makes it harder when I'm bidding using higher quality instruments against cheaper ones also.
Hopefully this sounded informative and not whiny. I love what I do and will support band and music education every day of my life, no matter how hard it gets, but there seems to be more and more challenges every year. I know that the tariffs are trying to target manufacturing but there's so much downstream that gets affected.
Here's a link to NAMM's response to the tariffs as well. The guy that wrote it is really smart and a huge advocate for school music.
https://www.namm.org/news/press-release ... nstruments
Sorry for the long distribution..."
(...yet I still have the lowest prices on those models in the entire United States) 
I guess I started that when I bought a 3rd CC tuba.