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Re: Different mouthpiece tip openings

Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-09-11 06:54

Sorry, I have the idea in my head, it just doesn't always come across.

The best way to describe what I mean would be to describe an 'unpleasant' experience I had with several mouthpieces I had ordered from an august mouthpiece maker. I assumed at the time that I wanted to go slightly more open just to pump more air into the horn. Well of course the metrics are not that simple, and I wound up with three mouthpieces that were too open for me. Naturally I wanted to get some use out of them so I forced myself to play on a few of them exclusively for about four months. What happened to me (not having perfect pitch) is that I had to work with a tuner far more than usual because the slightest variance of pressure was throwing my pitch off the charts. The tone color changed even more drastically from register to register (even note to note). I was making ten times more adjustments than before just to keep an even sound. It would have been possible to get things to work eventually with a great deal more time and patience but for me (in part because it was also physically too open to be comfortable for the long haul) that effort would have been too much for too little return. I can achieve a tighter control on my pitch and timbre with the mouthpieces that have a smaller tip opening than those three.

...............Paul Aviles

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