Mikey

I just got off the phone with Schilke Music. They told me Karl Hammond is no longer working there. They did not give a reason.

Bummer, as I wanted to get some custom work done...I hope Karl will let us know where we can reach him, if he is still going to do mouthpiece work.

Mike

mhilton

Wow!! I've been working with Karl for the last 10 years on custom mouthpieces and have always held his talent in high regards. I've said it before on the trumpet forums, that he has always done a great job of diagnosing problems that I had with a specific mouthpiece and been able to correct it with alterations or by building a new one for me.

I really hope Karl will continue building custom mouthpieces. It would be great to see Karl start his own business someday as I would hate to see his talent go to waste!

I wish all the best to Karl in whatever he does from this point forward.

Matt

trickg

Man! That's news to me. I talked to Karl just last week and he was still at Schilke then. What a bummer - he gave me excellent customer service when I dealt with him on a mouthpiece a couple of months ago.

Mikey

Me too.

I talked to him just last week, and he said nothign about leaving. I wish I remembered the name of the person who answered the phone yesterday and told me.
I know that I asked to speak with Karl Hammond, and said person told me he was know longer there.

Schilke Music Products

To whom it may concern,

This letter is to inform you that Karl Hammond has decided to leave Schilke Music Products. Unfortunately, he decided to leave quickly. We are currently in the process of determining our strategy for moving forward in regards to custom mouthpiece work. We have a highly capable mouthpiece manufacturing division that will be able to continue to offer specific services for custom mouthpiece work as well as all of the standard Schilke mouthpiece models. Karl was a highly talented mouthpiece maker, and we wish him all the success in whatever he chooses to pursue in the future.

As of Nov.28th, we will have a new sales associate joining Schilke. Tom Stark is an accomplished trombone player in the greater Chicago area and offers a depth of knowledge in Schilke low brass mouthpieces as well as custom mouthpieces. In the future, please contact either Phil Baughman or Tom Stark with any mouthpiece questions you may have.

We appreciate your continued support of Schilke Music Products.

Andrew Naumann
Owner/President
Schilke Music Products

mhilton

As a customer of Karl's and Schilke Music for the last 10 years, I have great respect for Karl's knowledge and talents as a custom mouthpiece maker. I can imagine that losing an asset like Karl must be hard and finding a person to fill his shoes will be a great task. The question I have is this:

How long will it be before Karl's replacement is up to speed on doing the caliber of work that Karl did? Thanks.

Matt