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I have Gunther Schuller to thank. Before his visit to ASU in 2004, although I intuitively knew some setups were stiffer in the slots between notes – “bumps” that impacted trills especially – I had not thought about the situation and topic nearly as deeply as he had (and the mouthpiece I used was relatively smooth, more on that in a moment).
Maybe it is good my teachers did not talk about this topic, you don’t want to overthink everything. Schuller, however, had words to describe what he heard and had fantastic ears. As I wrote then in my original blog (the full post is here),
Prof. Schuller is … very concerned about “bubbles” (attacks with sort of a mini-frack on the beginning), “clicks” (the bump in slurs), and having the ultimate, even tone quality with great control down to the softest possible dynamic. He presented clearly a very high standard for students to work to achieve in these areas.
“Bubbles” (his term) are a big concern for him, probably his biggest concern. Most players are not even aware of the somewhat uneven quality of attacks as they are just not really listening to them closely. We get used to how we sound. Open your ears! The cause of “bubbles” can be several things but in my opinion it boils down to two items. One is choice of mouthpiece and horn; some mouthpieces in particular will by nature produce an attack with a bubble. This is however compounded by choice of syllable for the articulation.
Thanks to Schuller, I’ve been puzzling about this for 15 years. I’ve written about it a few times here in Horn Matters, especially with regard to clicks but also with regard to playing natural horn. See in particular,
- Topic: “Clicks” and valve changes
- More on “clicks” — and the best horns
- On Choosing the Right Natural Horn and Mouthpiece
All of these articles relate to things on my mind the last few weeks.
Let’s start with bumps. I think of bumps being what you feel when playing passages that go across notes on the harmonic series, where there is no change of a valve. Clicks are closely related, and while I associate them with valve changes, part of the issue is again the harmonic series. Either one will impact your accuracy if the horn is too stiff or too loose. Good makers balance these elements carefully.
What causes clicks and bumps are several different design elements, including the tapers of instrument, the bracing pattern, the valve section and the rotation of the valves, mouthpiece fit, and the mouthpiece itself.
In my own case, I had settled on a Houghton H-1 mouthpiece in brass as the favorite mouthpiece on my Patterson Geyer. I had noticed very slight variations among all the examples of the H-1 I’ve had, and then got a new one that intrigued me. It measured identically to my favorite except that the bore was #14 instead of being just under #14. What Intrigued me specifically was it was smoother in the clicks and bumps. Playing it for students confirmed though that this one had a slightly duller (“darker”) sound, they preferred the slightly more colorful sound of the favorite H-1.
So with that thought let me suggest two links to articles in the blog of horn maker Jacob Medlin, articles I had not noted until working recently on Horn Matters updates:
Horn sounds are hard to describe, but the best tones have some color and complexity. From the first article linked, this is a key section:
“Bright” and “dark” as descriptors of sound quality are useless in my opinion.
I encourage the horn playing community to reject these and choose more descriptive terms, especially when talking with horn builders or resellers. I have noticed, in talking with clients, that the two terms have very loaded meanings and are more often used to differentiate between the Geyer and Kruspe schools of thought than anything actually sound related. In fact, many people’s usage of “bright” and “dark” are reversed from one another.
As I was trying things I got back out an old favorite, Osmun copies of my favorite example of the mouthpiece I mention far too often in Horn Matters, the Conn 5BN. The mouthpiece wheel of doom is real, you will keep going back to where you started. The 5BN is deeper and a bit less colorful sounding, but is a good bit smoother in the clicks and bumps, enough so to toy with maybe switching back …. It does tend to tell me why I used it so long, as elements of it feel great even if a little more foggy feeling overall.
There are two more things to mention that are parts of my personal puzzle with this right now. One of them is this coming week I’m performing with my Arizona State brass colleagues at the Musical Instrument Museum. Besides playing in a brass quintet again seriously for the first time since I joined the faculty at ASU in 2001 (Joe Burgstaller is our new trumpet professor, it is a new era for brass chamber music at ASU, there has not been a faculty brass quintet at ASU since 1985!), I’m playing on the program the second movement of Mozart 3 on natural horn. This led to another big round of mouthpiece and horn trials, settling on the big Seraphinoff natural horn and a Moosewood LGC mouthpiece, which was the best for, you guessed it, clicks, bumps, and bubbles. Mozart 3:2 is a great movement for testing all of these things. Certain deeper mouthpieces are better in relation to bumps, and on natural horn a cup with a bit of a double cup shape is a good idea on my natural horns.
Which brings me to the final topic: bubbles. I don’t ever use this term myself, but in lessons I’m constantly thinking about and working on articulations with students. I think of the topic more in terms of articulation shapes, that the front and back of the note have a nice knife edge of sound if required rather than a fuzzy quality. You would think it is just about tonguing, and for sure that is a big element as you need to articulate differently to get different effects and at different volumes and in different ranges. But surprisingly often it is also clearly an equipment thing. All of these things relate to articulations:
- Mouthpiece shank size/fit
- The mouthpiece overall (bore/cup/material)
- The horn (leadpipe taper, other tapers, materials, bracing, etc.)
- The rim shape
- The rim inner diameter
The good news is many of these things can be adjusted, especially if you have the rims and mouthpieces to do it—and I try to have that collection with good options for students to try.
These few years I’ve really appreciated that we have some of the very best mouthpieces ever made on the market, and also some of the best horns. If you are noticing the clicks, bumps, and bubbles more now than before, blame Gunther not me, and get to looking as there likely is something out there that would help.
