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Re: How much mouthpiece to take in

Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-08-01 15:59

I re-read the above article and still find it quite thorough and useful. However it doesn't address the above question in detail, it only gives it a brief mention.

Tom Puwalski said on this Board some years ago that he can switch seamlessly from mouthpiece to mouthpiece by executing the "squawk test." That is playing an open "G," close to the tip of the mouthpiece and sliding in gradually (while playing that "G") until you get a big, uncontrollable squawk.

Having used that idea for many years I find two things about that. Yes, you can find a really good spot to play on any (most) mouthpieces this way. And yes, I find (for me) that the spot that plays consistently best on most mouthpieces is really close to the point of contact.

The exception (for me) has been in German mouthpieces (real German mouthpieces such as Wurlitzer M3+ which I use as my example here). If you look carefully across the side of a German mouthpiece with a reed on it, you'll notice that the typical slope and distance of a Boehm mouthpiece is present pretty much in the same way. The difference is that there is a small separation that continues for another 12mm!! So the German idea is that you get more of that control leaving your embouchure at a fairly typical spot. Or rather NOT moving up the the point of contact.

I believe that you can get results of varying degree by placing your embouchure at different places along one given facing. It depends on the player and how they approach that "tight rope walk" between amount of air on one side of the equation and embouchure pressure on the other side of the equation (remember, that changes quite drastically moving from very loud to very soft). But I have found on Boehm mouthpieces that I get the greatest dynamic contrast and resonance moving close to the contact point. As David Shifrin once put it in a master class, "Use all the mouthpiece you paid for."

..................but you don't have to

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

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