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Theo's Alley
Theo Wanne’s Biography
For ten years, which spanned his high school years, Theo was an apprentice as a custom bicycle frame builder in Bellingham, WA at DaDa Bicycles. Their specialty was brass fillet brazing, which requires intense finish work that creates very smooth and beautifully scalloped joints between tubes. This brazing process required a lot of hand-work. And as the apprentice in this business Theo did most of this work. Over time he became very skilled, crafting very beautiful bicycle frames. Fillet brazing as a technique for custom bicycle building has declined in use now. The hand work involved is simply too time consuming and not cost-effective.
Theo also learned frame design, jig building, shop set-up, and other various welding techniques including TIG, MIG, Arc welding and Oxy-Fuel brazing. He gained a familiarity with various materials and casting procedures. Custom frame design incorporated personal ergonomics along with stressor flow. This became very beneficial in helping Theo uncover the effects of airflow and individual blowing styles on the resultant sound from a saxophone or clarinet mouthpiece. Eventually he found remarkable similarities between the two fields of study.
Through his ten-year college stint, Theo bought and sold vintage saxophones from private individuals, small music stores, repair shops, pawn shops, etc. During this time he discovered a common predicament. He had trouble finding a saxophone mouthpiece that unleashed his musical soul. His friends in the vintage sax business recommended he try a vintage Otto Link mouthpiece. Eventually he found an original 7 Florida metal Link to play. While being very close to the sound he was looking for, it responded poorly probably from being tossed around over the years.
This is when Theo met Bob Carpenter of Seattle. Bob is retired and, along with being a beautiful person, is an expert mouthpiece refacer. Through the goodness of his heart Bob taught Theo the fundamentals of mouthpiece refacing. Because of Theo’s experience of working with bicycle frames he picked up the art quickly.
The flame was lit. Theo spent his life savings on every vintage saxophone mouthpiece he could find. He bought thousands of mouthpieces! His friends and family thought he was totally crazy, but fortunately they had some trust in him too!
Theo studied and studied every mouthpiece he could. He spent innumerable hours figuring out why each one sounded its particular way. He then validated his findings by duplicating each mouthpiec's design in another mouthpiece until the two mouthpieces sounded exactly the same. This was done to prove to himself that he indeed understood what made each mouthpiece unique. He made charts of the various facing curves, chamber sizes, floor and side wall shapes, documenting the effects each variable had on sound.
Eventually Theo opened Saxophone Mouthpiece Heaven and started selling the mouthpieces he had collected as well as doing custom mouthpiece refacing.
Shortly there-after Theo moved his business to Philadelphia and started working at Gustafson Music. He found it quite an honor to have Bret Gustafson teach him saxophone repair. Theo considers Bret to be a true master repairman. But as Theo’s mouthpiece work caught on in the world market, Saxophone Mouthpiece Heaven eventually became a full-time business.
So Theo left Gustafson music to create a shop on his own. With the help of his assistant Frank Machos and Dave Tondi (who has become a world-class refacer in his own right) Saxophone Mouthpiece Heaven flourished. Theo’s refacing work started to get very popular, and soon he had a two-year back log of work and could only accept a small fraction of the work offered to him.
Theo’s philosophy has always been to ‘learn as you go’. He provided the sound his customers were looking for by adjusting their mouthpiece in front of them. He absorbed their feedback, and adjusted their mouthpieces until their dream sound became reality. With many of the top saxophonists in the world as customers, Theo had an amazing opportunity to learn just what the musicians of today are looking for. Over time he found patterns in what musicians wanted and subsequently created custom models and CAD drawings of these designs. Those designs are now the cornerstone of the new mouthpieces being manufactured by Wanne, Inc.
In order to best craft these new designs, and provide the best possible mouthpiece for his customers, Theo eventually turned his full attention to making the new mouthpiece models through the corporation, Wanne, Inc. His brother Tom, who has a degree in physics, computer science, and a Masters degree in business, also became his business partner, and CEO, of Wanne, Inc.
Since Theo is only interested in creating the absolutely highest quality mouthpieces possible. This endeavor has taken some time. He is pushing the boundaries of technology with his new mouthpieces and has five patents pending. Theo personally oversees every detail in the new mouthpiece production in order to create the Rolls Royce of saxophone mouthpieces! |
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