If your child has received this letter, then their instrument is in need of repair. Normal wear and tear is to be expected, and occasionally everyone’s instrument needs to go to the repair shop. If the repair needed is minor, I can probably take care of it, but in many cases, the repair is more than I can do in the band room. Fortunately we live near two places where you can take your instrument for repair. The first is Separk Music in Clemmons, and the second is Counterpoint Music in Mocksville (see the Band Handbook for addresses and phone numbers for these places). If you are renting your instrument from one of these places, you should take it there for repairs because you’re probably paying for minor repair insurance or something like that. If you already own your instrument you need to decide where to go. Counterpoint Music is more convenient, but your instrument will take longer because it is shipped somewhere else for repairs. Separk Music might be farther away, but they have repair techs on site all the time, and your instrument will come back quicker. When you send your instrument off, make sure that you get your mouthpiece/reeds/music/etc. out of it. For many instruments, we have school instruments available to use so we don’t lose any class time, and you’ll need that stuff to participate in class. I’m giving this letter to students with a date on it, and marking the date in my gradebook. A week after the letter was given to the student, I either need to have the instrument repaired, or at least in the shop. After that, I have to start lowering grades in the gradebook. It is essential to the musicality of the group that EVERYONE’S instrument is in complete working order. If for some reason money is an issue and that is why instruments aren’t getting repaired, please take it to the shop and get an estimate in writing. Once you have that estimate bring it to me, and I can check to see if there are funds available to help get the repair done. I know that lowering grades due to instruments being in disrepair seems a little extreme, but we have several students whose instruments need to go, and they just aren’t going to the shop. As a result we have a few students who can’t play certain notes, or who we can’t tune because of tuning slide issues. This really needs to be fixed so we can grow as an ensemble. I appreciate the extra time it takes out of family schedules to take a trip to the music store. Thank you for your continued commitment to the program. Student: _______________________________ Grade: ___________ Instrument: _______________________________ Date this letter was given: ___________ What seems to be wrong with the instrument: ______________________________________

As always, feel free to contact me using any of the information below. Thanks! Sean Nelson, Band Director, North Davie Middle School Phone Numbers: 336-998-5555 Email: [email protected] Websites: https://sites.google.com/a/davie.k12.nc.us/mr-nelson---music/ http://seannelson.homestead.com