Busso Music / Ernest Deffner

[dak]

Glad it was resolved and you are happy.
We have a similar situation around here with a dealer who is well known for not giving reliable estimates on the duration of a repair. He is willing to give people a loaner so they can practice while the good accordion is being repaired, but when you must rely on a certain ready-by date because you have a concert coming up a loaner isn't going to help.
I guess that the problem will in the end go away because more unhappy customers will result in fewer customers, and that then makes it possible to deliver on time again...

Or close shop. Bad estimates affect the bottom line in more than one way.

 

[Wheezer]

I'm happy to hear all ended well!
I had a situation where a film
camera technician accepted a vintage, German-made 35 mm photographic camera for servicing and lubricating the shutter mechanism.
He had it for three years!
Eventually, we agreed he'd return it, as is, via his mailbox, no questions asked!
I retrieved it that week!

Reminds me of the guitar player that dropped an instrument off for repairs. It completely slipped his mind until he found the repair tag in the pocket of an old sport coat five years later. He went to the shop, hoping against all odds that the instrument was still there.

The luthier went into the back room, and came out about five minutes later to announce that it should be ready in about another week…

 

[Alan Sharkis]

Reminds me of the guitar player that dropped an instrument off for repairs. It completely slipped his mind until he found the repair tag in the pocket of an old sport coat five years later. He went to the shop, hoping against all odds that the instrument was still there.

The luthier went into the back room, and came out about five minutes later to announce that it should be ready in about another week…

I heard the same story about a shoe repairman.

But seriously, I recently ordered some books from him cia his website and I don’t know if the orrder actually went through. He never answered.my phone call about it.

 

[Mike K]

Well, I need some repairs and he is the closest shop...though not real close. Should I be concerned. I do have a spare but it is my main instrument that needs the repairs. A Giulietti Transformer from 60s.

 

[Felipe Ventura]

Good afternoon friends! All good?

Does anyone know if the Ernest Deffner company still works? Their website is down... I sent them an email at three different addresses... Nobody responds...

I urgently need to buy sheet music from them!
Does anyone know if another company sells their books?​

 

[LibraryJoe]

You can usually only find “out of print” Deiro and Pagani reprints and the Palmer Hughes supplements that Alfred chose not to keep through Deffner or used via EBay. Occasionally an odd older book will show up at Liberty Bellows.

Books from Mel Bay or Hal Leonard are easy to find through online sellers.
Deffner/ Busso Music is to be commended as an outlet for these older pieces, but the site is just one of Frank Busso, Jr’s gigs and it’s not always operated in a timely manner.

Mr Busso is an accordionist with the Air Force and acts as the Strolling Strings Superintendent in Washington, DC

 

[Alans]

Frank jr. has been president of The American Accordion Association for the past year. He used to play in the Navy band and he Conducts -he’ll be conducting the accordion orchestra at their July convention. Unfortunately I would never buy from them again-Frank is too unreliable . He seems to be a very nice fellow and comes from a very prominent accordion family-but there’s a problem with the way the business runs and they’re just not reliable. After trying to get a response for months I went through a colleague of his. He told me my request went into his spam folder. So I ordered again-years ago and never heard back.
His sheet music catalogue is the most extensive I’ve ever seen,but buyer beware.

 

[isorry123]

Ok

Frank jr. has been president of The American Accordion Association for the past year. He used to play in the Navy band and he Conducts -he’ll be conducting the accordion orchestra at their July convention. Unfortunately I would never buy from them again-Frank is too unreliable . He seems to be a very nice fellow and comes from a very prominent accordion family-but there’s a problem with the way the business runs and they’re just not reliable. After trying to get a response for months I went through a colleague of his. He told me my request went into his spam folder. So I ordered again-years ago and never heard back.
His sheet music catalogue is the most extensive I’ve ever seen,but buyer beware.

lol should I just email his DoD email from mine hoping my repair materials get here

 

[Alans]

I would look up the AAA site and email him there. And sad to say,I would avoid using his service-or lack of service again. In the future I would use Liberty Bellows-they are a timely and reliable and they answer their phone the first time you call.
Also Tempo Trend in B.C. is extremely reliable and the currency is so much lower you would get a better deal.

 

[isorry123]

I would look up the AAA site and email him there. And sad to say,I would avoid using his service-or lack of service again. In the future I would use Liberty Bellows-they are a timely and reliable and they answer their phone the first time you call.
Also Tempo Trend in B.C. is extremely reliable and the currency is so much lower you would get a better deal.

I wonder if it’s just easier to google translate a shopping list of what I want and send it to https://carinidena.it/

 

[Rosie C]

I'm happy to hear all ended well!
I had a situation where a film
camera technician accepted a vintage, German-made 35 mm photographic camera for servicing and lubricating the shutter mechanism.
He had it for three years!
Eventually, we agreed he'd return it, as is, via his mailbox, no questions asked!
I retrieved it that week!

Likewise, I arranged for a motorcycle mechanic to rebuild an engine for me. He got as far as stripping it down, and then there was no progress for months. Eventually we agreed he would give me a working engine from a different bike. I don't remember whether money changed hands, or how much.

 

[Scuromondo]

I’ve gone to Mr. Busso several times for routine accordion maintenance. He is a wonderful man really; very knowledgeable, thoughtful, and considerate. A successful shop like Liberty Bellows has a full staff to run the store, handle in-person as well as online sales, and maintenance workers right in the store. With Busso it seems to be virtually a one-man operation. He really needs, at a minimum, to hire someone to take phone calls and manage orders and shipping for him. He is just stretched far too thin to support his business, and I fear he is losing customers as a result

 

[Alan Sharkis]

Reminds me of s man I know. He owns a small neighborhood music store and school for young students, with a staff of teachers. He meets adult brass students at the school for lessons an hour before the store opens. He rents out instruments, particularly to high school students at a parochial high school where he’s also a band coach. In addition to a Masters degree in music education, he has a certificate in band instrument repair and he does that, too. And if all that isn’t enough, he’s the arranger and leader of a big band.

So, one day I asked him why he doesn’t get help with, at least somebody to collect rental instruments at the end if the semester, and he said that he can’t trust anyone else to do any part of what he does himself.

I have no idea if that’s also Frank Busso’s story or not.

 

[Dingo40]

So, one day I asked him why he doesn’t get help

Over recent decades , hiring staff has become such a huge hassle that many tradespeople hereabouts do without assistants or apprentices and simply work solo.

 

[isorry123]

Reminds me of s man I know. He owns a small neighborhood music store and school for young students, with a staff of teachers. He meets adult brass students at the school for lessons an hour before the store opens. He rents out instruments, particularly to high school students at a parochial high school where he’s also a band coach. In addition to a Masters degree in music education, he has a certificate in band instrument repair and he does that, too. And if all that isn’t enough, he’s the arranger and leader of a big band.

So, one day I asked him why he doesn’t get help with, at least somebody to collect rental instruments at the end if the semester, and he said that he can’t trust anyone else to do any part of what he does himself.

I have no idea if that’s also Frank Busso’s story or not

Over recent decades , hiring staff has become such a huge hassle that many tradespeople hereabouts do without assistants or apprentices and simply work solo.

I’m frustrated because it’s impossible to buy “a set of every reed leather valve, dots, metal spines, wax, spoon”

I messaged bossetto on eBay, as well as liberty bellows directly to see if they could put the order together for me.

Wish it were simpler to order a ton of repair parts. Where do you get your stuff through ?

Thinking of just buying naugahyde at 1mm and .5mm thickness to cut my own leathers

 

[debra]

I’m frustrated because it’s impossible to buy “a set of every reed leather valve, dots, metal spines, wax, spoon”

I messaged bossetto on eBay, as well as liberty bellows directly to see if they could put the order together for me.

Wish it were simpler to order a ton of repair parts. Where do you get your stuff through ?

Thinking of just buying naugahyde at 1mm and .5mm thickness to cut my own leathers

I buy everything from Carini (www.carinidena.it) in Castelfidardo. Probably not the cheapest way to get repair parts in the USA, but you get them from Italy where also most accordions are made. I know of others overseas who also get their stuff from Carini, so they know how to deal with shipping to the USA, Canada and other countries outside the EU.

 

[isorry123]

I buy everything from Carini (www.carinidena.it) in Castelfidardo. Probably not the cheapest way to get repair parts in the USA, but you get them from Italy where also most accordions are made. I know of others overseas who also get their stuff from Carini, so they know how to deal with shipping to the USA, Canada and other countries outside the EU.

Debra how do you navigate their website, it’s so bad and nothing has prices or really anything you would expect.

Do you just send them an email directly and get a quote ? Can’t even find an “add to cart” button

Ehhh I’m just ordering everything to be self sufficient through Amazon: vinyl fabric ~1 mm for leathers, acetate sheets for plastic leathers, leather hole punch and spring steel rods .6mm for boosters, felt 1.5 mm for pads, and culinary drawing spoons for wax, also buying 5 pounds of beeswax and 1 pound of pine rosin.

Also I might just use my wife’s cricut to bulk make leathers - will sell them if they work. These culinary drawing spoons look great for wax, they are for decorating cakes and plates and stuff - nice reservoir for wax and a drawing nib for precision

Torsion springs for key springs ?

 

[debra]

Debra how do you navigate their website, it’s so bad and nothing has prices or really anything you would expect.

Do you just send them an email directly and get a quote ? Can’t even find an “add to cart” button

Ehhh I’m just ordering everything to be self sufficient through Amazon: vinyl fabric ~1 mm for leathers, acetate sheets for plastic leathers, leather hole punch and spring steel rods .6mm for boosters, felt 1.5 mm for pads, and culinary drawing spoons for wax, also buying 5 pounds of beeswax and 1 pound of pine rosin.

Also I might just use my wife’s cricut to bulk make leathers - will sell them if they work. These culinary drawing spoons look great for wax, they are for decorating cakes and plates and stuff - nice reservoir for wax and a drawing nib for precision

Torsion springs for key springs ?

The first step is to create an account.
Once you log in through your account all the items have prices.
Some people do just send an email with the items they want and then get a quote. I'm told this works well, even using English, but I have always just gone through their website to order stuff, and sent them an email if something isn't quite right or if I forgot something.
You might want to turn the website into English (click on the small Italian flag icon and then select the UK flag from the 2-item list). I occasionally do that but mostly work with the Italian version.
Many items on the site have pictures so that helps to identify whether it is indeed what you want.
You should of course realize that when you are communicating with Italians doing so in Italian works much better than trying to get by with English. I started taking classes in Italian over 10 years ago in order to communicate with people in the Italian accordion industry. I'm not fluent in Italian but good enough to get by when I'm in the physical Carini store in Castelfidardo and when I'm communicating with them through email.

 

[dak]

I started taking classes in Italian over 10 years ago in order to communicate with people in the Italian accordion industry. I'm not fluent in Italian but good enough to get by when I'm in the physical Carini store in Castelfidardo and when I'm communicating with them through email.

You seem to be kind of serious about playing accordion.

 

[debra]

You seem to be kind of serious about playing accordion.

No Italian needed for that, but for learning about accordion repair and talking about technical issues and parts it really helps to know a bit of Italian. Of course the names of accordion parts are not taught during classes in Italian, but the Carini website, naming parts in both Italian and English, really helps. Google translate is 100% useless for translating names of accordion parts between English and Italian.