- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
If there is one single piece of advice that has held back more players, it might be this quote from the Farkas book: “If the truth be told, no one mouthpiece or change of mouthpiece is going to revolutionize anyone’s playing ability.” In truth, a change of mouthpiece can absolutely change your life!
Besides quality control issues and design issues of common, standard mouthpieces that might hold you back, another underlying big issue is that traditional mouthpieces are designed to work best for people with thin lips.
Before elaborating on that topic, a few quick points:
- Of all the mouthpieces in the Farkas book lineup, only the FARKAS MODEL is all that good
- You can get fantastic mouthpieces today relative to in the 20th century due to CNC lathes
- You do need at least five of them, if you have at least five one of them should stick out as being better than the others
- For those curious, I am currently using a stainless steel Houghton (Houser) H-4 cup with a Houghton H3 rim in black H-Kote on my Patterson Geyer, and versions of the Houser San Francisco cup on other horns I play frequently. Among my students, most can find a mouthpiece they really like among these four: Houser San Francisco cup or Houghton (Houser) H-1, H-2, or H-4.
Returning to the topic of relatively heavy or thin lips, I have relatively full lips for my ethnicity. This has given me some level of insight that other teachers might not have. In addition, an important point to highlight is that good teaching involves problem-solving skills. You should be able as a teacher to recognize when the issue is a mouthpiece issue and not a playing issue.
I have had students with heavier lips than mine and for sure, many will benefit from a mouthpiece with an inner diameter of 18 MM or more, the right rim choice can clear up every playing issue you are dealing with. For a general idea of how big that is, in that size range a US dime should fit down into the top of the mouthpiece rather than sitting on the rim.
Traditional mouthpieces, such as described by Farkas, typically have an inner diameter of around 17.25 MM. If you have heavy lips at all, this is really too small. You might have been told by some teacher to roll the lips in to compensate, but that is really not good advice. The correct solution is to use a rim with a larger inner diameter.
Modern screw rim mouthpieces have made trying rims and cups so much easier than 50 years ago. It is expensive — my current mouthpiece sells for $220! — but it is money well worth spending, and every higher-level horn teacher should have a collection of good mouthpieces and rims for you to try. For larger diameter rims, the Houghton H-1 mouthpieces come in a variety of sizes, and the Houser E rim does as well and is an excellent choice to consider.
Speaking of rims, you will also find that different rim shapes can drastically alter the clarity of articulations and the color of the overall sound. If you have never experimented, you owe it to yourself to do so.
I also mentioned earlier in this series something about endurance and mouthpiece rim contour (in relation to mouthpiece pressure). I find a very rounded rim contour focuses pressure onto a point rather than spreading it out, and of course, a very narrow rim focuses pressure to a smaller area. Experimentation is very important toward finding a balance between all the factors on an individual basis.
Above all, do not use a generic mouthpiece! A switch to a more contemporary design could absolutely revolutionize your playing. As a teacher I have observed too many good students slogging along on some obviously brand X not good mouthpiece, and that is all they have. Ignorance can be bliss, but it is not a good thing when it comes to your horn playing and equipment. You really need several mouthpieces, more on that topic here:
One other important note for teachers, I have had students who had odd playing problems, but were using what I thought to be good mouthpieces. I have found it incredibly helpful to have a variety of mouthpieces, as I can try their horn with the same type of mouthpiece. In one specific case, I discovered that a Lawson mouthpiece was terrible on their horn! Not every mouthpiece works on every horn. That is why you must do some comparisons.
To close this series on a high note, I feel like I am finally coming out of a long tunnel of mouthpiece issues. The tunnel started in 2014, when I developed metal contact allergies and could no longer use a gold rim. I finally settled on a plastic rim and got used to it, with the very “dry” feel it has. However, I was always struck by how if any of my students ever tried that rim, they hated it. And, if I were honest, I was not liking it that well either, but it was better than not playing!
With the COVID pandemic and just practicing at home, I decided to push myself, knowing that I really should physically be able on a rim in stainless steel or with H-Kote. It took weeks, but I could! Then my intonation got wonky, with a very flat high range! Which led to more good changes. The result was I switched to using versions of the San Francisco cup on my other horns and the H4 on my Patterson Geyer. In addition, the rim is essentially the same as the rim I used when I won my job in Nashville, feels like home. I cannot wait to get back to some real playing in the fall.
Especially if you are in a dark tunnel with your playing, try changing mouthpiece. It really can help everything; do not mindlessly believe it is you instead of the mouthpiece, the bad conventional wisdom is wrong.
Thank you for following this series, expanded from a Zoom presentation made to Horns-United Cor Camp in June 2020. If you are associated with a school or organization that would like to see more, I am happy to do virtual presentations on a variety of topics, feel free to contact me for details.
Return to beginning of “Bad Conventional Wisdom” series.
