Mellophone Mouthpiece FAQ

Ummm…mellophone mouthpieces?

Funny how jet lag can just hit you. I thought I was doing well from the travel back from Taiwan, then, wham! Last night, instead of sleeping, I spent quite a while thinking about mellophone mouthpieces. Besides also doing an update on my list of suggested horns and mouthpieces in my studio site I ended up looking up a number of details on mellophone mouthpieces online.

Why?

ASU for a number of years used B-Flat marching French horns, but in the fall looks to be set to change to more of a corps style setup with mellophones. I wanted to get back up to speed. And I had a couple days ago downloaded the newest Mellocast on the topic of mouthpieces which got my interest up in the topic.

You needed to get up to speed?

I realized listening to Mellocast 10 that I was a bit behind the times. The only mellophone mouthpieces I was really familiar with were the Bach mellophone mouthpieces and they are I learned really old school, based on alto (tenor) horn mouthpiece designs. Modern mellophone mouthpieces are all variations on trumpet/cornet/flugelhorn mouthpieces.

How do the dimensions compare? Is it a big deal?

The smallest of the original Bach models is the #12 mellophone and it has an inner diameter of 18.30 MM. I discovered, too, that Bach does not ship mellophone mouthpieces with mellophones any more! What they ship now is the 6BM trumpet mouthpiece (!) which has an inner diameter of 16.20 MM, much smaller. The average horn mouthpiece is somewhere around 17.30 MM and has a narrower rim.

It was not easy to find dimensions of other mellophone mouthpieces but the Kelly mellophone 6V is .634″, which works out to being very close to the average for trumpet mouthpieces.

In short, either type of mellophone mouthpiece, old style or new style, would feel bad to a horn player, but for different reasons.

What would work best on the mellophone?

I strongly suspect that something around the size of a typical tenor (alto) horn mouthpiece would be the best acoustical match for a mellophone for sound and intonation, if you were used to playing something this big. These typically are over 18.50 MM inner diameter, getting you up toward half way between a trumpet and trombone mouthpiece. The smallest tenor horn mouthpiece I see on the market is the Dennis Wick No. 5 which has an inner diameter of 17.50 MM. I like that inner diameter; it matches the inner diameter of the popular Laskey 75G horn mouthpiece. (The Blessing 5 mellophone mouthpiece is essentially the same as the Wick 5, thus also worth checking out). A few of the largest trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn mouthpieces are over 17mm inner diameter as well and could have some potential, in particular the Curry 1HTF [See UPDATE at end of post].

What about a horn mouthpiece with an adapter?

I remember reading something by Farkas, probably an interview in The Instrumentalist, where he recommended using a horn mouthpiece with an adapter on mellophone. It is to a point an acoustical mismatch, but probably no more of a mismatch in a sense than the typical manufacturer supplied mellophone mouthpiece. The smaller trumpet-like mouthpieces have too little cup volume for the pitch of the instrument but fit the receiver, while a horn mouthpiece has closer to the correct cup volume but does not fit the leadpipe properly, and with an adapter the instrument may tend to play flat.

How did the “small” mellophone mouthpieces develop?

I suspect that recent converts from trumpet started using them even in the late 50s. The original Conn Mellophoniums, introduced in 1957, were supplied with a large mouthpiece similar to a small tenor horn mouthpiece, but players figured out pretty quickly that they could substitute a cornet mouthpiece and it felt better on the embouchure and sounded OK–at least for marching band. It was market driven.

Is there a mellophone mouthpiece designed for horn players?

The IYM Larry Kerchner mellophone mouthpiece is an interesting product. To quote the maker, it is designed to “produce a dark, rich, orchestral French Horn timbre with comfort and stability” on mellophone. I am not much personally interested in a bright, “trumpety” sound from a mellophone, although this seems to be pretty common in the drum corp mellophone sections today.

Will you take a nap today?

Definitely.

UPDATE: For much more on mouthpiece options please refer to my article, “Mellophone Mouthpiece Options” in Horn Articles Online. The Curry 1HTF is one of the best options available and is used by the marching band at Arizona State.