Title:
Broken Instruments Are Music to the Ears of These
School Repairmen
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
LARRY JERNIGAN: "This is a leak light. So if you see
light, then that means air is getting through. That
means the lower notes won't play and it's a chance
that it will diminish the child's playing
experience, which we don't want."
Larry Jernigan wants children to have a joyful
experience with music.
LARRY JERNIGAN: "I think that works." Charles West
feels the same way.
CHARLES WEST: "Actually love my job. Sometimes it
seems not, you know, to be work. But it is work."
LARRY JERNIGAN: "I like the fact that I work around
music all day, that my job involves music, it
involves the support of music, and it involves the
education of music."
Charles West and Larry Jernigan have worked together
for almost 20 years. They fix musical instruments
for the Washington, D.C., public schools. Last year,
they repaired more than 600 instruments.
CHARLES WEST: "There are two of us here. We do
brass, string, woodwind, percussion, piano and
electric keyboard. And if you take it outside, you
are talking six, seven different individuals to fix
what I just stated."
The two men say they have yet to meet an instrument
they could not fix.
CHARLES WEST: "There are instances when we run
across an instrument that is just beyond economical
repair. So we just strip the parts from that and use
those parts to give life to other instruments."
Both men are musicians and music lovers. So learning
to do repairs was easy.
CHARLES WEST: "I have been a musician all of my
life. I am almost 50 now and I have been playing
instruments since I was six years old. I played in
an orchestra here in the city. I majored in music in
college. And I played in an army band."
LARRY JERNIGAN: "I was formerly trained in the piano
and guitar. The alto sax, the clarinet, and the
flute, I picked up while working here."
In addition to fixing instruments, the men also go
to schools to show teachers and students how to make
minor repairs. West believes that children who start
early and stay involved with music do well in other
areas of their lives.
CHARLES WEST: "I see that in other kids. I see it in
myself. I have seen it hundreds of times and it
works. They learn teamwork. They learn solo work.
They learn camaraderie, they learn patience, and
they learn respect."
But he has concerns about music in the electronic
age.
CHARLES WEST: "We are not telling you to throw the
PlayStation or the Xboxes in the trash. But this
electronic age and this instant age has taken away
from the sit down, the patience. There is no
patience. And to learn to play an instrument, it
takes patience, it takes diligence, it takes time."
Jernigan says he and West are lucky because they can
enjoy music on the job. And they say they really
enjoy the performances of D.C. students.
LARRY JERNIGAN: "When I get to go see a concert or
go see one of the bands perform, or the children
playing, or the choir singing, that is probably the
one that gets me the most because we had a big part
into making that a success."
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
