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Continuing to the topic of Geyer and mouthpieces, there is an article by Milan Yancich, “Carl Geyer — The Mouthpiece Man,” that was published in the March 1962 issue of the NACWPI Bulletin. Wait, the mouthpiece man??
A mouthpiece made especially for you!
A big picture thing to point out right away was Geyer understood that he needed to control the entire system to give the best result for his customers. He knew that he could make a great horn, but if someone played that great horn with a so-so or bad mouthpiece (or a mouthpiece otherwise unsuited to use with his horns), then the result was the buyer thought it was a bad horn.
The mouthpiece needs to match the horn. Part of his genius was that Geyer developed his mouthpieces to not only match his horns. but also to match the individual players he made them for. As Tom Bacon learned firsthand, when he bought his Geyer in 1962-63,
I knew that I had found what I was looking for and told Mr. Geyer so. I asked if I could buy one of his horns. He said that he had a lot of orders to fill, but if I would wait six months he would make one for me. And with a sidelong glance at the old, beat up mouthpiece I was using he added, “I vill make new mousepiece for you too.”
Made one by one
As introduced by Milan Yancich in his article “Carl Geyer – The Mouthpiece Man,”
Geyer’s mouthpieces, like his horns, were never mass-produced. Each French horn and mouthpiece was made to fit the individual’s needs and purposes….
Although Geyer’s main forte was the manufacture of French horns, he always had an intense interest in designing and making mouthpieces for musicians. In my own case he spent countless hours trying to help me improve my playing by making the correct mouthpiece. Carl Geyer met the challenge of making and improving mouthpieces with an intensity that always awed the lucky recipient, especially if the mouthpiece fit the individual’s need.
Turning out a mouthpiece on a machine lathe might take an hour’s time, but then the real work began with testing of the mouthpiece. Hour after hour is spent making adjustments for faulty notes, for intonation problems, for tonal discrepancies, and for other idiosyncrasies that might arise. Sometimes all his work came to naught because of an error in judgment like drilling the opening or backbore a shade too much or by making the rim too thin, etc. What did he do when he failed? He started over again! No wonder so many of our nation’s hornists hold Mr. Geyer in such high esteem.
There is more in the article about specifics of designs used at the time, but for now I would highlight this quote, which is 100% true: “Mr. Geyer states that the first twelve inches of the mouthpipe in conjunction with the mouthpiece spells the secret of tone production at its best.”
Geyer also designed some of the mouthpieces that were produced by other makers
Turning back to Yancich, in his A View from the Rear book he also states that
Most of the stock mouthpeices manufactured in the United States were designed by Mr. Geyer. The Conn No. 1 and the Conn No. 2 mouthpieces were designed for a German friend craftsman employed of the C.G. Conn Company. The Reynolds Company manufactured a mouthpiece that was originally designed by Geyer for Max Pottag, then its representative. The Holton-Farkas model mouthpiece was designed for Farkas by Geyer. The “MY” mouthpieces, specifically designed for me [and manufactured by Alexander] were Geyer products. His influence on the playing community was remarkable and incalculable.
Wait, Geyer designed the FARKAS MODEL???
This is where things get a bit spicy. Farkas stated that he came up with the design of the classic Schilke FARKAS MODEL mouthpiece in 1949, after much experimentation, working with Schilke on the design since 1947. His version of the story may be found here:
I think both accounts could be true, because Farkas obviously did play a mouthpiece of some sort before working with Schilke on his design, and as a Geyer-playing professional hornist (from the start of his career in 1933!), he would almost certainly have used a Geyer mouthpiece all the previous years. Farkas likely refined a Geyer design he had been using to arrive at the 1949 FARKAS MODEL, thus it owed a debt to Carl Geyer.
[It is all somewhat reminiscent of the story of how the classic Holton Farkas Model horn (developed 1956-58) came to be. Objectively, visually it is an updated version of the Reynolds Pottag Model horn from the 1940s (described further here). However, it was much better marketing on the part of Farkas (and Holton) to say that “It was actually a hybrid horn that had all the good qualities of the Alexander, the Kruspe, the Geyer, the Schmidt, and several others.” But really, the Reynolds horn is quite similar overall to the subsequent Farkas Model horns, and would have certainly been familiar to Farkas.]
A legacy we enjoy today
Clearly many of the popular mouthpiece designs used today owe something to Carl Geyer, as the “old school” types made by Giardinelli and others on the east coast have largely fallen out of use.
When the series concludes (no!) we will reflect further on his legacy.
**The photo of Geyer working at his lathe is from this Facebook page
Continue to the conclusion of Geyer Dreaming
