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I met an inspirational person today - Gilberto Serna, a master craftsman still working from the old Deagan mallet percussion company of Chicago. I finally took my old Deagan concert bells over, which are a complete set that I found in Tucson, AZ when I was there for the Tape Op conference a few years ago. The bells are in good shape, but the housing is useless. Mr. Serna is going to build a new case and frame, and tune the bells precisely.
The J. C. Deagan company no longer exists, though it operated for more than a century. Mr. Serna occupies a large warehouse space in the same building, where he has worked since 1968. The Deagan name is still on the clock tower above the building. Mr. Serna's company is called Century Mallet Instrument Service. He showed me around his workshop.
The old tube tuning gear was actually my favorite thing to see. We walked by a photo of a master tuner from the early 30's (whose name I believe was Schiller). He was working in front of the exact same pieces of equipment which Mr. Serna now uses. Mr. Serna has a small Deagan showroom with examples of some old pieces - calliope bells from 1888; a beautiful, ethereal sounding set of shaker bells from near the turn of the 20th century which I got to play briefly, a marimba built to perform for the coronation of King George - solid brass construction, over 200 pounds; another marimba built for the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago; the last vibrahorn that Serna hand-built under the Deagan name (available for sale at $38K); J.C. Deagan's first full-year ledger from the late 19th century (1889, if I recall properly), etc. It would have been easy to spend a couple of hours investigating the artifacts, papers and musical instruments in this room, but Melinda was waiting outside (this is certainly not a guilt trip in her direction, I left her sitting much too long for what was anticipated to be a drop-off service order).
Mr. Serna may be the last of his kind in this field, with such master craftsman experience and technique. His type of skill is a rarity, in any case. I know that he's in such demand that he is flown to Vienna twice a year to work there. In addition to repairing and maintaining old instruments in his shop and around the world, Century Mallet has many newly built mallet percussion instruments for sale.
Happily, Mr. Serna said that he was very impressed with the condition of my bells, and he'd set them up better than they'd ever been. It'll cost a little, but it really seems like an opportunity not to pass up. He offered to set them up as contemporary bells, tuned to A442. I answered that unless he strongly recommended otherwise, I'd rather have them dialed in as they were originally designed (A440) in 1926. [Trivia fact: In 1910, J. C. Deagan persuaded the American Federation of Musicians to adopt A=440 as the standard universal pitch for orchestras and bands.]
Mr. Serna has no computers in his office, though he says the company owns one - his grandchildren use it to answer emails. He wrote out my invoice by hand into a spiral notebook, and told me to call him in a couple of weeks.
He also told me that the building has been sold to a new landlord which will require all of the current tenants to relocate next year. "I don't even want to think about it," Mr. Serna told me, when I conjectured about the scale of relocating an operation such as his. He believes that the new owner will choose to keep the Deagan name on the clock tower.
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| | Posted 5/19/2009 12:42 AM - 27 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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