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Re: 440Hz mouthpiece on 442Hz tuning

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2020-07-12 05:11

Paul Aviles wrote:

> Up until recently Ben Redwine of the Gennusa mouthpiece used to
> make an "A=442" version by shortening from the mouthpiece tenon
> (and making the shoulder similarly higher).

I think that would be a pretty standard way to bring the pitch up post-manufacture of a rubber mouthpiece. I'm not sure if this can done with glass or crystal. Maybe it can with the right machinery.

> I don't think of a mouthpiece as tuned to a specific pitch.
> There are some that are reliably higher pitched and some made
> to play "darker" or lower in pitch.

There are lots of higher-pitched mouthpieces to choose from if that's where you're starting. The OP is starting from a specific mouthpiece that happens not to be available in a higher-pitched version. You're right, of course that they aren't really tuned to A440 or A442 or A-anything else. But it's well enough known that the Series 13 Vandorens, for example, were deliberately made (I think by scooping the baffle more than the traditional series) to play flatter. Then they were advertised as having been designed for "American pitch" (A440) while the original "traditional" mouthpieces were suddenly (at least on the American market) tuned to play at "European pitch" (A442).

I have three or four decent alto sax mouthpieces. Each one needs to be pushed in to a completely different spot on the neck cork to be at 440 (or even close to it). One almost falls off the end of the neck and wobbles unless I thicken the cork with paper or Teflon tape. Another needs to go all the way in until it just won't go any farther. Sax players, I think, just find something that works for them. Clarinetists, it sometimes seems, have to be told what everything does ahead of time. [wink]

>
> Since the 80's there has been a marketing push to make "darker"
> sounding mouthpieces which play flatter. Hopefully that trend
> is turning around.
>
Amen!

Karl

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440Hz mouthpiece on 442Hz tuning new

Jimis4klar

2020-07-11 15:42