Zachary Music is a full-service center for wind instruments located in Windsor, Ontario Canada, owned and operated by myself Alex and my lovely Hungarian wife with the exotic Eastern European accent that most men find so irresistible.
I was born in 1964 and have played music since the age of six. I studied classical piano for about six years but ended up using this serious training to compose my own Little Richard style rock tunes. The nuns who ran the music academy were not impressed. In high school I played the trumpet and dabbled with all the instruments found in the music room. I found that I really liked taking them apart and finding out how these archaic instruments really worked. I found that for some reason when it was time to put them back together I was always left with spare parts. After a while, I collected a whole box full of spare parts from which I built my first instrument. This was a cross between a bassoon and a trombone and I played it with a clarinet mouthpiece. I finally had my own instrument in band, although I stuck out like a sore thumb. Who says you can't afford an instrument? You just have to be imaginative. Later I learned to my devastation that a certain Dr. Frankenstein had copied my style.
While in high school I was also introduced to girls and electric guitars. I won't talk about girls because I was told to make this site parent friendly but I will say that I am an avid guitar player to this day and even lead a double life in which I also masquerade as a guitar builder.
After high school I attended the University of Alberta and achieved a BA among other things. I met a lot of idiots in University, half of them were professors and the other half were on their way to becoming professors. I was determined to work with my hands and not to ever get a regular job. Tired of accumulating spare parts and making instruments that were creative to say the least but played really out of tune, I decided to get some formal training in band instrument repair. There was nowhere to go. The local people performing band instrument repairs on a professional level were all third rate plumbers. The rule is, if you don't make it in plumbing you get into the band instrument repairs field. You don't even have to change your tools. I am sure you have some of these folks in your area as well if you're lucky.
Well this would not work for me so the only logical choice was to go to Budapest Hungary where the best craftsmen are located. Why Budapest Hungary? Well it had to do with girls of course. I heard that's where the best looking girls are and they are not shy. We will not go into that. The other reason is that this trade goes back hundreds of years in Europe. Europeans invented these instruments in the first place. Back when the buffalo roamed the grasslands and aliens were making crop circles in North America, the Europeans were playing beautiful music with ingenious instruments. So there was a big industry in the manufacture and repair of wind instruments for hundreds of years.
I apprenticed there and learned a lot form eccentric grumpy old craftsmen that really knew what they were doing. I also met my future wife while apprenticing. I couldn't stay there any longer for fear that I would be led into temptation so I decided to return to Canada to continue my studies in band instrument repair in North America.
I realized that there were only two schools in North America that taught a course in band instrument repair. Off I went to Red Wing, Minnesota, where I only lasted for 3 months because the course was moving too slowly and I felt that the instructors needed to go to Europe as I did for some serious training themselves. I found a better solution, I wanted to apprentice again instead of going to school with people who have never even assembled a flute. I found a grumpy old guy named Nyle Taylor. He was extremely grumpy and did not work much. You couldn't really blame him, he had a very good excuse, when I met him he already had colon cancer for three years and they had removed his anus. Now, wouldn't you be grumpy as well in this situation? He allowed me to do most of the work that came into the shop and that was great because I learn fast under pressure. I was doing all kinds of repairs and he was there to guide me if I had a question. Nyle was a veteran of WW2 and a graduate in 1948 of the highly respected Conn factory school . So he had lots of experience to say the least. A while later Nyle got bad news from the doctor to finally close his shop and I returned to Canada to open up my own business. Thanks for everything Nyle.
I did the usual thing for a number of years like repairing lots of junky old school instruments and I hated it. I eventually started selling used instruments that I reconditioned and then I ultimately got into selling new instruments. I enjoyed meeting the nicest families every day who would come to visit me when they needed a repair or a new instrument for their kids. One of these customers was really into this new Internet thing and he was unusually pushy saying that I should give it a try. There was a catch. He was in the business of hosting websites and he wanted my business. He irritated me enough that I agreed to try having a website. He quickly set up an amateurish site for me that was terrible and it got no hits what so ever. I was going nowhere fast. It was time for me to take things into my own hands. I consulted with Robn Meeks an expert on websites and he built a new site for me. Unfortunately he had to run away from a bad relationship and moved to California leaving me to fend for myself on the Internet. No problem, I learned many tricks and knew exactly what my site needed, my own personal touch.
After a few years of promoting different brands, I got tired of that and knew that I could do better. The next big development was the introduction my own ZeuS brand of instruments, made by my choice of the best instrument manufacturers of the world. This move has enabled me to be independent of all the politics found in the music retail industry. It also gives me the freedom to design, order and market instruments of my choosing. I have total control that other stores selling the more established brands do not. ZeuS has been an amazing success for us generating unprecedented referral sales and repeat customers.
In the future I will be concentrating on expanding the ZeuS line even further by introducing very high end custom shop instruments such as the ZueS Guarnerius Trumpet and the ZeuS 750 Saxophone. You can be sure ZeuS instruments will always be the best value in the industry. My goal for the future is to only sell ZeuS instruments exclusively and also to get into the wholesale market providing the ZeuS line to other music stores.
So here is everything in a nutshell. Now you better buy an instrument from me or you'll be sorry!
Alex, our master technician, is the mastermind behind Zachary Music. Any praise you have you must compliment him and any reservations you have he is the one to blame. He also performs all the instrument repairs being a professional instrument repair technician first and foremost.
Possessing a natural gift of craftsmanship, Alex initially learned to repair woodwind and brass instruments by apprenticing to several old European Master Technicians in Budapest, Hungary in 1989. He attended the Red Wing Technical College (Red Wing, MN), one of two schools in the USA where band instrument repairs is taught. Alex then apprenticed with Nyle Taylor (a 1948 graduate of the Conn factory) -- Nyle was the Head Technician at Schmitt Music Centers (Rochester, MN). In 1992, armed with 4 years of hands-on training by the top Master Technicians in Europe and North America, Alex founded Zachary Music.
