hi

i`m 15 and one of the parents in my highschools band used to be and oboe/english horn player and she just lent me her english horn for the rest of my highschool career aparently. it`s so wonderful but there is a serious problem. the keys are always sticky and the octave key just doesnt work. if i want it to open or close i have to do it manually so obviously i cant really play it. and we`ve taken it to some local places to get it fixed but they dont actually do anything and we end up wasting 100 and then it goes back to breaking the next day. we`ve yet to take it to san fransisco to the forrest store becuase i`m leaving for band camp sunday. is there anything i could do on my own in the next two days to help this

Well does broke already might as well take it too the store and get it fixed by the professionals....

What do you mean, the octave key doesn`t work? It sounds like it`s moving, but not actually opening the hole? It could be a problem with the springs. Maybe one of them was bent while the English horn was in storage... it does happen. If fixing the spring doesn`t work, you should have it (the spring) replaced.

I`m not entirely sure about this though, I`m just a high schooler

there`s really no way to tell you what to do over the internet. you need to take it to someone so they can see it for themself.... don`t take it to the local music store, most of them don`t really know anything about fixing oboes and english horns. find an oboe repair person; he or she may be farther away, but s/he`ll actually fix it, instead of just taking your money. if there`s nobody you can take it to, you can always send it out to get fixed too. john symer in NJ and Covey in atlanta will definitely be able to fix it if anyone can.

Or Carlos Coelho in Indy. John Symer definately would be a good person to send it too.