Guitar technician Jacob Koss restrings an acoustic guitar recently brought in for service.

CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA (MPG) - It’s a busy time of the year for Tague Band Instrument Services in Citrus Heights as its four repair technicians and owner Kris Tague inspect, service and repair more than 1,200 brass band instruments to get them ready for the start of a new school year.

Inside Tague’s shop at 8091 Greenback Lane in Suites H and I in the Greenfair Plaza, a busy workday began to take shape.

Tague and his four service technicians arrived before 8 a.m. with plenty of brass to polish, valves to adjust and replacement pads to install before the store opens at 10 a.m.

The front lobby and adjacent storage racks were filled with cases of school band instruments of all types, each tagged and ready for service, with many more in a storage unit, Tague said.

The deep sound of a baritone saxophone punctuated the quiet air as its valves and pads were examined by a tech completed a final service inspection.

Robert Dolan has a baritone saxophone in pieces on his workbench.

Band students from about 40 schools in the Roseville Joint Unified School District, San Juan Unified School District, Twin Rivers Unified School District, and Folsom Cordova Unified, to name a few, rely on Tague Band Instrument Services to rent and service brass band instruments during the school year.

Members of the all-ages Citrus Heights Community Marching Band (CHCMB), which performs in parades, festivals and field competitions throughout the greater Sacramento area, are also regular customers, according to Tague.

His firm, Tague Band Instrument Services, offers rentals, repairs and instrument cleaning services. Music lessons in bass, clarinet, flute, guitar, piano and violin are available.

Tague, an Orangevale resident, took time for a brief interview and to introduce his four repair techs before returning to his work bench to service a recently-arrived clarinet. The full-line service shop offers repairs of all band and orchestral instruments as well as percussion repair.

Tague’s start in the instrument repair business began in 1993 with Northridge Music, previously based in Citrus Heights. Tague was responsible for the high quality of repairs provided at Northridge for more than 20 years and now continues this tradition at Tague Band Instrument Services.

Kris Tague, Tague Band Instrument Services owner, stands with just a few of the brass band instruments coming in for service.

“We had a very strong local following at Northridge servicing the school districts in the surrounding area and it was a natural choice when I bought the repair shop from them in Citrus Heights,” he said.

Tague is actively looking to expand his repair business and his sales floor as well as offer his teachers a larger practice and rehearsal space. It’s a priority that he wants to accomplish by the end of 2025.

“We’re located in two suites here,” Tague said. “Our repair business has continued to grow and I’d like to add more workstations to handle that demand.”

“In general, our turn-around repair time for the school instruments we’re now working on tends to be rather quick but it varies by the job and the scope of work required,” he said. “Bent or dented horns do take a bit more time to straighten out.”

Tague Music is a licensed Yamaha instrument dealer and services everything from entry level instruments to professional state-of-the-art instruments and offers services ranging from routine maintenance to custom fabrication, modification and complete mechanical restorations.

Staff welcome walk-in customers daily for service, lessons and instrument repairs.

It’s especially gratifying, Tague said, to see the children of many of his long-time customers now taking up a musical instrument.

Tague has been a National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians member since 1993.

The trumpet is Tague’s area of professional expertise. Tague started playing the instrument in fifth-grade with Jim Culbertson in Decatur, Illinois. Culbertson was a world-class trumpeter and is the father of jazz artist Brian Culbertson. Tague then moved to Sacramento to attend Sacramento High School.

After graduating, Tague attended Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego, which led to an opportunity to study for a year with Alan Siebert, the San Diego Symphony principal trumpet. Tague later transferred to and then graduated from Sacramento State University.

Outside of work, Tague is an active semi-professional musician and enjoys playing vintage brass instruments with a Civil War reenactment band that performs at the Alcatraz historic former federal prison in San Francisco. He also plays with Joyous Brass, a British-style brass band.

Once the school year starts and the racks of instrument cases are back in the hands of their players, Tague and his repair techs will take to the road to many of the outlying school districts to demonstrate band instrument field repairs which they typically demonstrate in-house.

“School music departments are often overwhelmed and can’t travel to us, so we’ll come to them,” he said. “It’s good for everyone involved and it speeds up the time needed for repairs.”

Located at 8091 Greenback Lane, Tague Band Instrument Services was started in 1993.

Tague Band Instrument Services at 8091 Greenback Lane in Suites H and I in Citrus Heights is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays. Call 916-721-0295 or email [email protected] for more information.