Restoring the music

Arriving home after a recent trip, there was one thing on Jeremy Soule’s mind.

“The first thing I did was jump on my bench,” says Soule, who fixes and restores vintage instruments from his Rivermont Avenue home. “I missed it.”

Soule is the Vintage Clarinet Doctor.

He spends his days toiling away at a work bench in his downstairs bedroom, breathing life back into antique instruments, some that date as far back as 1870.

“It’s almost like a treasure hunt,” Soule says. “You spend hours fixing it, and then it’s like, ‘What do I have? Do I have magic?’”

When it comes to those older instruments, which he says were made to last, Soule often finds that magic.

“I’m amazed,” he says, “at how well these instruments play.”

Many clarinets and other woodwind instruments are made of a wood called grenadilla. It’s a very slow-growing wood found in Africa, and Soule says most of it has been used up.

So, by refurbishing these older instruments, “you’re kind of recycling.”

Right now, he primarily repairs and restores clarinets, which are cheaper and easier to whip into shape, and some saxophones, but would like to expand to other brass and woodwind instruments as his business grows.

Damaged instruments come to him from as far away as Sweden and Austria; Soule says he deals with problems that are specific to older instruments, including loose keys and bent, dried, warped or cracked wood.

Depending on the instrument and its problems, it can take anywhere from six to 12 hours to repair.

“It requires such concentration,” Soule says. “You can’t be tired or unfocused. You work in short bursts.”

He’ll start by taking an instrument apart entirely. Then he’ll soak, oil and buff the wood and polish the keys to “get everything nice and tight again.”

Lynchburg College professor Glenn Buck has sought out Soule’s expertise for his two saxophones. Once when they both needed intensive work, and other times for more minor repairs.

“He’s done fabulous work,” says Buck, who has had both of his horns for almost 40 years. “I’ve had them worked on all over the country, and I’ve never heard them play like they do now.”

Local musician Barry Marshall moved to Lynchburg from New Haven and says he was nervous about finding a repairman for his 30-year-old sax.

Then he found Soule.

“I wouldn’t bring my horn to anybody else,” Marshall says. “It’s like a doctor. When you find a good doctor, why go across the street?”

When he’s not repairing something for a client, Soule regularly buys instruments on eBay – some for as low as $40 – and fixes and resells them for a fraction of what newer ones cost.

A current project is a clarinet that was made in the 1920s; once it’s done, Soule expects to sell it for less than $400. Some of today’s instruments are made of plastic and go for thousands of dollars, he says.

“I have to look at them like students,” he says. “I have them for awhile, then I have to put them out in the world.”

He says his goal is to put them into the hands of pro players looking for a different sound or feel without having to break the bank; collectors or amateur players who enjoy owning a piece of history; and students and parents who want to save money.

Soule can relate to that last group; he began playing the guitar and flute when he was a teenager growing up in upstate New York. He went on to major in music at Bard College and eventually moved to California, where he worked as a church choir director, ran the music program at a private school and performed.

All along the way, he always loved tinkering with various woodwind, brass and stringed instruments. But he didn’t receive any formal training until he moved to Lynchburg and took a job at Lynchburg Music, where he spent three and a half years as an instrument repairman.

Today, you name it, he plays it (and, likely, can fix it): the guitar, bass, mandolin, clarinet, saxophone and trumpet.

He also gives lessons and performs with two local bands: Square Peg, an acoustic trio that plays everything from French ballads, Greek folk tunes and Brazilian music to covers of The Beatles, the Bee Gees and Queen (including a Bossa rendition of “Fat Bottomed Girls”), and the Retrofits, an organ quartet that plays vintage jazz, Latin, blues and the occasional funk tune.

Making a living in the music world can be hard, but it’s all Soule can imagine doing.

“My back-up plan is to live simply,” he says, “and do what I enjoy.”