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Effect of Oral Cavity Size on Sound

Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-06-07 19:49

I'm going to say that it doesn't make any difference. I've heard this claim sometimes used as an excuse for why one person has a great sound and another does not.

I arrived at this conclusion through a dental issue I am going through at the moment. For the next three months I will be using a "partial" (retainer like device that holds a false tooth) in preparation for the installation of an implant. Mine is rather thick plastic plate of about 3mm at its thickest and it runs from the left molar to the right. This takes up a fair percentage of room in my mouth. Without it, I am back to normal oral cavity size and also have the tooth gap which should add even more oral cavity size to the equation.

I play five minutes or so with the partial (not so comfortable for articulation mind you, but it works ok). Then I pull the partial out and play about five minutes of the same material only to find that there is no difference to the sound whatsoever. I realize that this only represents a percentage of the total volume but if there was any claim to the oral cavity being an important constituent to the sound, then I should hear some difference and there is none whatsoever.

I realized in the post about the A-Frame Baffle in the Backun Signature mouthpiece question, that a fairly small reconfiguration of the internal shape of a mouthpiece CAN and DOES make a big difference to the response of the mouthpiece. So if the size of one's oral cavity made any significant difference to sound, the same should be true about changing a portion of the oral cavity size.

I hope to hear from others who have similar appliances with which to experiment.

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

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